Trust
by All-Things-TMNT
Summary: When a mission goes wrong, Leo gets critically hurt and his brothers have to race to save his life. I do better summaries on my blog. Multiple P.O.V.'s, some more intense than others.
1. Chapter 1

I was brought back by the shaking of whatever I was laying on.  
"_Raph, I need you to keep the Shellraiser steady! Mikey, hold him down please!_"  
"_I'm trying, Donnie, but there's so much blood here! I don't want to touch it!_"  
"_Well get the hell over it! Raph can't do it because he's driving!_"  
"_Let me drive then and Raph can come do this!_"  
"_Mikey, damn it, hold Leo down!_"  
I could hear all of these voices, the voices of my family, but I was way too disoriented to respond.  
So many things happened tonight. So many confusing things.  
And so many things were happening in those few moments.  
But I couldn't focus on a single one of them.  
I couldn't concentrate on anything.  
This weird, cold feeling was starting to creep it's way all throughout my body.  
"_Michelangelo, he's going to die if you don't help me!_"  
So that's what was wrong. I was dying.  
The more distant the world around me became, the more I tried to focus on how I got to that point.  
"_Leo, can you hear me?_" Donnie questioned, so close to me.  
I could only force myself to say one thing.  
"Where…where is Sensei?"  
And then there was nothing.

*****Post-Booyakashowdown,**_** Pre-Follow the **__**Leader.**_

_**Leonardo's P.O.V.**_

The Kraang weren't doing anything that night. Donnie's communication orb hadn't given us any head notice. We were just out on looking for mutagen when I spotted them.  
Karai.  
I kept my eyes locked on her from several rooftops away.  
My brothers didn't say anything while we watched her. I think they understood that there wasn't anything there for me; just curiosity as to what the Foot were up to.  
We hadn't seen Shredder in a while, and it had definitely been a while since I had seen Karai do anything. So what was she doing with a bunch of Foot ninjas on this random night?  
I could see Karai's mouth moving from my position, but I didn't have a prayer of knowing what she was actually saying.  
"Donnie, do you have ANYTHING that can help us hear what they're saying?" I asked him, annoyed that we weren't getting much done.  
"Well," he pondered his options. "If we could get a T-phone over there, we could listen in on this end…"  
"But how are we gonna get one all the way over there without being spotted, dudes?" Mikey questioned allowed.  
I looked all around; there was nothing to conceal us, so there was no way for any of us to get over there.  
I groaned inside of my head, thinking about all the useful information we could have been missing.  
"Leave this to me," Raph grinned, grasping his T-phone in his hand.  
Before I could object in anyway, he darted down the fire escape behind us, and he was gone.  
Seconds passed and Rah did not emerge, so I quickly focused my attention back on Karai.  
They weren't moving at all…she was just…talking.  
Without any warning, my T-phone began vibrating. I looked down to see an incoming call from Raph.  
"Raph, be careful!" I hissed into the microphone as soon as I answered the call.  
"Be careful from what?" his voice jumped from behind me.  
"How are you—" I started to ask while raising the phone to my ear.  
The only noise coming through was the sound of wind. I turned to face him, confused. He kept grinning and pointed up.  
My eyes located a sole bird (a pigeon, maybe?) flying towards Karai, but nothing else.  
It landed on their same rooftop and that was all I could see.  
I looked back at him again, only to see him smiling confidently.  
Alright, Raph…  
"Alright, so we're all clear on the plan?" Karai's voice suddenly overtook my T-phone.  
Donnie, Mikey and I gasped as Raph's plan…whatever it was….worked.  
We all remained extremely quiet, trying to hear anything we could.  
"Then it's settled," she continued after a few moments of silence. "We meet at the docks at midnight. Now go get everything ready!"  
With that, all of Karai's ninjas dispersed, and she jumped off of the rooftop as well.  
"Any ideas what her plans could be, guys," I looked back at my team and asked.  
Mikey's eyes lit up as he recognized the chance to go off on a tangent about what they could have been up to.  
I quickly slammed my hand on his mouth and gave him a look.  
"Serious ideas," I clarified.  
This was Karai, and she was a threat. I wasn't about to take the situation lightly, especially since we had no idea what her actual plan was.  
Mikey's expression fell as he nodded.  
"Well I think the only way for us to find out is to be there tonight and crash whatever party Karai is trying to throw," Raph said, holding out his hand.  
All of us watched him confused when out of nowhere, his T-phone fell directly into his hand. My eyes shot up to see a pigeon flying off into the distance.  
I had never been so confused in my entire life.  
Raph looked up and nodded at the bird, also throwing him a thumbs up.  
…Okay, _now_ I had never been more confused in my life.  
Despite the confusion and curiosity surrounding Raph and his…friend, I snapped myself back into the mindset of Karai.  
Whatever she was doing needed to be stopped.  
"Guys, let's head back to the lair," I offered. "We need time to come up with a plan, and we need to ask Master Splinter what to do."

_This_, out of everything else, was probably my least favorite part about being leader.  
My brothers and Sensei all sat before me in the dojo, as I stood before them and voiced my thoughts on the situation, and offered them strategies.  
Sensei told me it was his way of testing my effective leadership skills, like he was judging my ability to speak to my brothers. Honestly, when it was just my brothers, I was totally fine. But when Sensei was watching…it made me nervous. Like everything I was saying was wrong.  
Tonight, I was more nervous than any times I had done this in the past, probably because I was drawing complete blanks. And on top of that, I felt so uneasy about the whole situation, possibly because it involved Karai. She had deceived me so many times in the past, and I just felt more…alert, on guard almost.  
All of their eyes were on me as I paced back and fourth. I had to say something, but I couldn't put together pieces if I didn't have them.  
"C'mon, Leo," Raph whined. "It's 11:20! We got 40 minutes to get to the docks before whatever goes down starts!"  
"Raph, we don't know anything about what's going to happen!" I argued while keeping my eyes on the floor and my pacing even.  
Half of my brain was dedicating to figuring out what Karai's plan was, and the other half was trying to decipher a way to approach it.  
"Well let's piece together what we do know," Donatello spoke slowly, raising his hand to rest his face on his chin.  
Alright, somewhere to start.  
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sensei watching me intently. Like he was already disappointed that I was leading such a poor excuse for a meeting. Fantastic.  
"Oh!" Mikey exploded from his spot. "We know that we have to be at the docks for midnight!"  
"We know there will be at least a dozen Foot ninjas there," Donnie calculated, probably judging from the amount of them we had seen earlier that night.  
"That's just a dozen more butt I get to kick," Raph smiled.  
"And we know it's being lead by Karai," I spit, getting frustrated that I seemed to be the only one not contributing to the discussion.  
In that moment, I noticed three things happen.  
One, I felt nothing when I said Karai's name. No emotions or feelings like I had been fighting over the past few months, There was nothing, Just the need to stop whatever she was doing. And it was the biggest relief in the world to me.  
Two, All of my brothers' eyes shot to me. I think they were expecting me to react in someway, seeing as they all knew I had been struggling to get over whatever it was I had felt for Karai. But I kept my reaction even, because there was nothing there. No driving emotions, no lust, nothing. It was just…I was just calm.  
Third, and probably most notable to me, though I seemed to be the only one to notice this, was Sensei. The second I said Karai was involved, he tensed. Not in an obvious way, it was very subtle. His fists clenched and he shuddered slightly. It wasn't something you could have caught unless you were looking at him, and I was amazed that I was even able to see it happen.  
Had I imagined it?  
No, I couldn't have, because his fists were still balled when I turned my full attention to him.  
I debated in my head wether or not to ask him about it in front of the others, but I refrained.  
There was this thick intensity that seemed to be rolling off of him. I couldn't quite explain what it was, it just seemed like he was upset about something. About Karai…  
"My sons," he spoke calmly, his words betraying the feelings I seemed to be the only one picking up from him. "Go and gather your weapons. _We_ must leave immediately to see what this plan is."  
_We_. That time I know I wasn't the only one who caught Master Splinter's strange behavior.  
My brothers and I all looked at each other, but we reluctantly obeyed. We would never disband the orders of our Sensei, even if they confused us.  
As we all began to exit the dojo, Sensei held me back.  
"Leonardo, I wish to speak with you," he said.  
"Hai, Sensei," I bowed in respect and watched my brothers as they all slowly exited the dojo, never taking their eyes off of us.  
Sensei waited until the others were outside of the room completely before he spoke.  
"I am coming with you," he finally said, retreated to his chest where he kept out practice weapons.  
I stood there, not sure of what he wanted me to say.  
Sensei never came with us on our missions, it was quite strange to me that he wanted to come now. What was this about?  
"May I ask why…?" I was careful with my words.  
I had never once questioned my father. I had always trusted his judgement before, and he had never betrayed my _**trust**_. But why this, all of the sudden?  
He seemed hesitant to answer me in anyway. Asking him was definitely the wrong move.  
"I want to be clear in stating that using lethal force is not allowed," he finally spoke again, not answering my question.  
"Sensei, we never use lethal force," I defended.  
He pulled out a bow and a holster full of arrows, securing it on his back. He also held a rope, which he secured around his waist.  
"Especially not on Karai," he whispered.  
It was like he was ignoring everything I was saying, and it started to wear on me.  
"Sensei, you know we wouldn't ever seriously hurt someone without reason," I spoke in a more direct tone. "That includes Karai, but if she makes me feel like she's going after any of you, I won't hold back."  
Sensei's eyes locked on mine, and they had a certain coldness to them. Unease slowly crept over my body, but it didn't distract me from what I was saying.  
"I've given her too many chances, and if she does anything to make me feel like my family is in danger, I will bring her down, Sensei."  
"No, you will not," Sensei raised his voice, throwing me off guard and causing me to take a step back. "No harm will befall Karai tonight, or ever."  
I stared at him wide-eyed as he spoke. There were very few times when Sensei had ever spoken like this to me, and I couldn't understand why he was in those moments.  
Why he was defending Karai…  
"We will capture Karai before she can do any significant damage," he continued, only lowering his voice slightly.  
"But…why…?" I tried to speak like I wasn't intimidated.  
"Sometimes our enemies are not really our enemies," Sensei's voice returned to a normal volume, but it was still as cold as ice.  
There was such an intense urgency to him. It was like he was begging me to understand something that he could not bring himself to say. But with how he spoke to me, how could I respect whatever he wasn't telling me?  
He began to exit the dojo after my brothers, but he stopped next to me and uttered something so low, I barely caught it.  
"I made you leader of your brothers, Leonardo, but I am the leader of you, and you will respect my better judgement."  
With that, he left the room, and I was alone with the conversation we'd just had playing in my head.

I was driving more cautiously than I had ever driven in my life, mainly because I knew I was being judged. Sensei had never ridden in the Shellraiser before, and he'd never seen me drive before.  
I was so scared that everything I was doing was wrong. Especially after the way Sensei had talked to me in the dojo…He made it seem like me wanting to protect my brothers was a bad thing.  
He made me feel like my calls as the leader were poorly thought of.  
But above all of the respect I felt for my Sensei, and all the love I had for my father, I would do anything I felt I needed to do to keep my family safe…even if it meant disobeying Master Splinter.  
I don't think my brothers felt nearly as anxious as I did. To them, this was just another Foot ninja ambush. To me, this was an evaluation of my position on the team.  
I was so nervous in fact, that I even obeyed all the traffic laws, including all of the speed limits. Not that I didn't normally obey them, but I knew tonight we were on a timer.  
Everyone in the back was silent. The only noise I could hear was Master Splinter drumming his fingers impatiently.  
"Wanna drive ANY faster there, Fearless Leader?" Raph taunted me from the backseat.  
Just what I needed…  
I kept my mouth shut and my eyes on the road, too afraid to even speak back.  
"Raphael is right," Master Splinter agreed with him. "Leonardo, we are on a tight schedule, we must get to their location now if we are to utilize the element of surprise."  
Without any response, I simply pushed the gas pedal down, speeding up and following Mikey's directions.  
"My sons, I am taking the lead on this mission," Sensei announced to us.  
Every cell in my body froze as I used all of my strength not to make any form of reaction. My leadership position had been revoked. Was this permanent?  
There were definitely times when I know I messed up. Definitely times when I regretted the calls I made, when I saw better opportunities only after I had missed them, but I never thought I had screwed up enough to the point where Master Splinter would name a new leader for the team.  
Who could even play the roll aside from me?! Raph tried once, and we all know he failed miserably. Mikey was…Mikey. He couldn't lead the team effectively.  
Donnie was obviously the best choice. That was it. After this mission, Sensei was going to turn the team over to Donnie. I hadn't risen to the challenge. I failed in Master Splinter's eyes and I questioned why I ever even thought I could be leader.  
I could feel all of their eyes on me, but I was too focused on the war that was raging inside of myself. And I poured all my attention into following the driving instructions I had been given.  
_Turn right up ahead.  
_"…We will surprise out enemies by splitting up," Sensei began to speak after a few moments of awkward silence. "Raphael, Donatello and Michelangelo, you will storm from the ground level on my signal."  
My heart sank as I waited to hear if I had any role in this plan.  
_Take another right two blocks down_.  
"Leonardo, you and I will station up on high vantage points," he added. "None of you are to act until I give the orders. We will not be lethal, we will simply overpower our enemies with our surprise attacks."  
I still didn't fully understand what Sensei's plan was. I was the only one of my brothers who knew he intended to take Karai hostage. What did he even want with her? To use her as bait to lure out the Shredder? To get information from her? There were tons of possibilities…  
_Turn left, and ride straight down to the dock's main gate_ _entrance_.  
My brothers all wasted no time in racing to their assigned positions. I didn't move so fast. I was still in shock, trying to even move.  
What was happening? Did Sensei not respect me as his student anymore? Did he not love me as his son anymore?  
There was something bigger, underlying all of this. I knew that, but whatever it was, Sensei didn't trust me enough to tell me.  
I had to get that trust back. Whatever I had done to lose it didn't matter. I needed to show Sensei I was good enough to be the leader and I was worthwhile.  
So I determined that no matter what _my_ judgement was, I would follow Sensei's orders.

The seconds felt like years. Time was passing at an excruciatingly slow rate.  
I was perched next to Sensei on top of a roof, waiting to spy on a Foot meeting..  
Sensei was clearly ready to kick me off of the team. I literally had to be perfect tonight. No mistakes.  
When we'd first climbed the fire escape up to the roof, Sensei had stopped me.  
"Leonardo," he said. "Wait, there are guards."  
I peaked my head over the roof's edge to spy two Foot ninjas, perched over and looking below. Their backs were to us.  
Normally this situation would have appeared to me as a video game on easy. My anxiety made me see it as more of a challenge.  
Despite my fears, I wasted no time.  
"I'll take them out, Sensei," I said, determined to prove myself to him.  
He looked at me strangely and nodded giving me permission to go forward.  
I jumped onto the roof, mindful of the weight I put onto my feet. Silence was one of the keys in stealth, and I spent the better half of the last few months working on it.  
My feet touched the surface so lightly, the sound I made could have only been heard if you were right next to where I landed. Or if you had giant rat ears…  
I looked back for a moment to see how Sensei had judged how I was dong so far. He watched with no expression on his face. He didn't even seem to be focused on me. His eyes were focused on something beyond me. The watch point where he wanted to be.  
I took a deep breath and steadied myself. This was it, my first chance to prove myself.  
I silently leapt towards my enemies, arms extended. I gave them no time to react to my touch. I simply smashed their two heads together. Not enough force to kill them, of course. Master Splinter had made it very clear that he didn't want lethal force, and I never had any intention to use any. I simply knocked the two of them unconscious and slid their bodies away from the spot.  
Master Splinter did not hesitate; he flew past me as I was dragging the two heavy men backwards, offering me no aid. But more noticeably, he paid me no compliments for my actions.  
I never asked for thanks you's, or any type of compliments when I acted, but it didn't hurt to hear them…Especially when I needed to know what Sensei was thinking about me.  
I lowered them onto the fire escape and used ropes I found on their persons to tie them up. Everything I did had to be effective.  
Slowly, I took my place next to Master Splinter and we waited for whatever was going to happen to start. We were early, and sitting their idly next to my father was practically the worse kind of torture I had ever experienced in my life.  
I wished I could read his mind, know what he was thinking about me, because up until this point, it seemed everything I had done that night was wrong.  
I tried to distract myself by pointing out various things, kind of like a ninja I Spy. I easily picked out Mikey, his bright orange mask didn't hide too well, even in the water.  
Raph was a few yards away from him, holding onto one of the pillars that was supporting the whole dock itself.  
Donnie was the hardest to find, standing behind a large crate close to the center of the pier but far enough to remain hidden. I was originally looking for the purple of his mask, but found that the pale green of his skin was what gave him away.  
I was hoping that the only reason I could see them so easily was because of my high position, and not because they were obvious. I didn't want anything to happen to my brothers…  
Finally, a car pulled up to the middle, and Karai stepped out of it. The car barely gave her time to get out at all, as it sped off before she even closed the door.  
She didn't seem phased by it at all as she kept walking forward. With her arrival, her dozen Foot ninjas appeared from the shadows, and she began assembling all of them in a line.  
"Tonight, we're here to assemble all of Shredder's weapons for the next phase of our plan," she announced to them.  
I looked down at them curiously; we had been there to ambush their weapons shipment months ago. I guessed that after her father almost drowned, they abandoned the shipment to get the Shredder any needed medical attention. Or was this a new shipment all together?  
I was so lost in my thoughts, I almost missed what Karai said next.  
"Nothing can go wrong on this night," she bellowed, leaving me to ponder why she was speaking so loudly.  
It was as if she wanted to be heard, or if she knew she was being heard.  
_No…_  
"So that's why we're going to stop any turtles and their rodent master from getting in the way tonight!"  
On her last word, she jumped and threw several shuriken towards Master Splinter and I.  
Sensei didn't even budge at the oncoming assault. He was completely transfixed on starring at Karai…  
"Sensei!" I screamed, tackling him to the side to avoid being hit by the shuriken.  
We both tumbled over the side of the building, and we were free falling.  
Alright, not my best idea…  
Sensei grabbed me by my wrist and held me up as he reached for the ledge of the root. He held both of our weights, making us a pretty easy target.  
Alright, probably my worst idea…  
I looked over to Karai to see her grabbing more throwing stars as some of her Foot ninjas raced towards us. When we fell, they would totally overwhelm us. Master Splinter and I were sitting ducks.  
Suddenly, Raph and Mikey jumped from the water and landed on the ones running towards us.  
Donnie used his Bo Staff to pole vault from his hiding place to Karai. He landed on top of her but she pushed him off and was quick to recover, drawing her swords. Donnie sprang up and held his staff ready to take her on.  
I panicked. I knew Donnie couldn't handle Karai on his own, and there were definitely too many Foot ninjas for Mikey and Raph to hold off on their own.  
So I screwed up the mission. I put everyone in jeopardy. No wonder Master Splinter wanted to replace me.  
"Leonardo!" Sensei called down to me.  
I looked up in horror to realize that he was starting to lose his grip on the ledge. Sensei could have easily pulled himself up if he wasn't carrying my dead weight. We were in danger of falling again.  
There was little to nothing I could do, so I frantically searched my brain for a plan B.  
My eyes locked onto a dumpster against the wall a few years away from where I was.  
My brothers needed me, and no matter how much Sensei disagreed with my role on the team, I was going to be there for them.  
I hadn't actually mastered this skill…though I'd been practicing it since I was seven years old. I remember seeing it on old ninja videos that Splinter had for us, and ever since then, I'd always tried to perfect it whenever the opportunity presented itself. The lair didn't give me much room to practice the older and bigger I got, because there was little to no clear wall space.  
I doubted I could even pull it off effectively now. There was so much doubt circulating through me.  
Until I heard Mikey scream. I looked back to him and saw him slam into the wall so far below me, three Foot soldiers slowly creeping towards him.  
"MIKEY!" Raph yelled, but was drawn back into his own battle defending against three swords at once.  
Something about knowing my brothers were in danger, it ignited something in me.  
Time caught up to me and the reality of the danger truly set in. I looked back up to Splinter feeling more determined that I had all night. Adrenaline was flowing through every single one of my veins, and charging every single cell in my body.  
"Let me go, Sensei!" I called up to him.  
His eyes widened in shock as he saw the distance from me to the ground. He knew there was no way I could land that much of a fall without getting hurt in some way.  
"_**Trust**_ me," I begged him, knowing every second that passed could have been fatal.  
I saw something shift in his eyes, and he prepared to let me go. I braced for it, planting my feet against the wall ready.  
And Master Splinter let go of my wrist.  
I shifted my weight and used my feet to run against the wall of the building towards the dumpster. Gravity was pushing me down a lot faster than I had anticipated, but I kept running as fast as I could, hoping that I could close the distance between me and that dumpster before I hit the ground.  
I knew I wasn't going to make it, so I dove for the dumpster.  
I crashed into it harder than I expected to and was stunned by a searing pain I felt in my left shoulder.  
Dizzy and disoriented, I realized I had popped my shoulder completely out of it's socket. But I didn't have time for such a minimal injury.  
Master Splinter had already pulled himself up and was shooting arrows at the assaulting ninjas surrounding Donnie. He never hit any of them, but was simply gaining their attention to draw them way from Donnie so he could stand a better chance against Karai.  
I sucked in a deep breath as I prepared myself for what I was about to do. And without any further hesitation, I slammed my dislocated shoulder into the brick wall next to me.  
I actually heard the sickening sound before I felt anything. It was this weird popping noise, and my bones popped back into their correct places.  
I literally had to fight with all of my strength to stay on my feet, as the pain I felt in my shoulder radiated to every part of my body. My shoulder screamed, my chest ached, and my legs were shaking fiercely.  
After I gave my body mere seconds to adjust, I rushed to Raph and Mikey, who were knocked on their shells with Foot ninjas storming towards them.  
I drew my blades and blocked five various weapons from landing on top of my brothers' heads.  
Holding back one foe's blade, easy. Two, not a challenge. Three, a little difficult. Four, barely possible. Five, with a recently dislocated shoulder…well, adrenaline is a powerful thing.  
"Leo!" Mikey screamed from behind me. "Hang on bro!"  
"NO!" I barked at them, struggling to hold back the ninjas. "Go help Donatello with Karai! I can finish these guys off!"  
"You—you got it," Mikey seemed hesitant but ultimately obeyed my orders.  
Raph stayed behind me, readjusting his grip on his Sais.  
I was not in the mood for him to challenge my orders. Donnie and Mikey were going to need strength if they were going to take Karai down.  
"RAPHAEL," I called out his full name, looking back at him and starting to feel myself sliding back. "I SAID GO!"  
He took a shaky step back. I realized the last time I had been that forceful with my orders, was when I was yelling for them to leave me behind on the Technodrome.  
My words clearly cut into Raph, but I didn't have time to be sorry, and he knew that. He reluctantly ran around the ninjas I was blocking to aid our brothers.  
Knowing the space behind me was now clear, I jumped back letting all of those weapons fall upon where Raph and Mikey had just been. I spun my body around and wheeled my foot into all of those ninjas. My spinning kick took them all down.  
For a brief moment, I was given visual access to the entire dock. I saw Master Splitner, fighting off multiple Foot soldiers on his own.  
And I could see Karai taking on all three of my brothers with ease.  
She grabbed Donnie by his sash after she dodged his strike, and sent him flying into the crate he had been hiding behind. Raph saw Donnie get hurt and charged at her, which she also evaded with ease. Before he could turn, she kicked him in his chest and he crashed into Donnie, both dazed on the ground. Mikey then jumped in front of them to protect them from Karai. She only laughed and fiercely started swingng at Mikey.  
My baby brother was always the fastest of us, and he did everything he could. But Karai was just a little bit faster in her offense, and soon Mikey joined Raph and Donnie on the ground.  
The three of them groaned in pain as Karai displayed her smug, arrogant smile proudly.  
"Is that the best you turtles can do?" she mocked them.  
I'd had enough at that point.  
I charged in her direction, ready to defend my brothers. Out of nowhere, a new group of ninjas popped up in front of me, blocking my path.  
Their array of weapons rained down on me as I raised my katanas to block them.  
"Pathetic," I could hear Karai spit from where I was.  
I used all of my strength to hold back all of those ninjas from me, while trying to see around them to what was happening to my brothers.  
And that was when I noticed Master Splinter, completely out in the open with his bow and a single arrow ready in his hand. He had it aimed directly at Karai, who appeared to be completely oblivious to him.  
I felt my heart skip a beat when I saw Karai raise her sword in the air.  
She was going to kill them. Karai was going to kill my brothers, and the only person who could stop her was Master Splinter.  
Of course he was going to save them. Of course he would act in the better interest of his sons!  
But as the seconds ticked by, I watched horrified as Master Splinter couldn't do anything but lower his arrow and stare at Karai.  
It was like no one else existed in the world but him and her. It was like he was in some horrific trance totally unaware of what Karai was about to do to my brothers.  
"Say goodbye, freaks," she laughed.  
"Sensei!" I screamed, knowing what was about to happen.  
His only response was to stand completely still and watch Karai horrifically.  
I screamed. I summoned every ounce of strength I had and I pushed all of those Foot ninjas back away from me with one of my swords. I lost my grip on it and it slid away from me.  
I didn't give it a second thought.  
And I charged at Karai with so much hate powering me.  
The bloodlust in me was overwhelming. Karai was not going to hurt my family.  
She was not going to fucking kill my brothers.  
Not if I was alive to protest it.  
I'd had enough. I warned Karai to stay away from my brothers. I told her months before that if she ever went after them, I'd go after her without a second thought.  
And she had more than crossed that line I had drawn for her. She had _destroyed_ it.  
My knuckles practically screamed with how tightly I was gripping my sword, ready to end her before she could hurt Donnie, Mikey or Raph any further.  
But the world around me slowed down in those few moments.  
My brain made everything seem to move in one fourths of the world's regular speed.  
I looked over every weak point in her armor. I calculated where my blade could do the most damage.  
I pinpointed her neck as my target, seeing as she paid me no attention and wasn't prepared to defend against me at all.  
This was it; I was going to kill Karai. I had only killed once in my life, but that was nothing compared to this moment. I was going to kill a human person tonight.  
I was not going to walk away from this fight without making sure she could never touch my brothers again.  
Somehow, as I drew closer to her, my head turned on its own accord as I prepared for the impact. It was like I knew I wasn't going to be able to watch my sword actually draw blood. The sword that Sensei had given me strictly for self defense.  
Sensei…  
My eyes locked onto him as I had completely forgotten about his presence. I was shocked to see he had once again risen his bow, but the arrow was aimed at me.  
And no more than ten miliseconds later, he released that arrow.  
I didn't stop running, I kept my pace as I watched that arrow flying towards me.  
I braced myself for the pain, but had no intention of stopping.  
That was when I felt the arrow hit my sword, knocking it out of my hand.  
And Master Splinter's words replayed in my head.  
"_I want to be clear in stating that using lethal force is not allowed_," _he had said to me.  
"Sensei, we never use lethal force," I had told him._  
Sensei wasn't aiming at me; he was aiming at my weapon.  
The sound of the metal hitting the ground did two things: one, it broke through to me, and two, it caused Karai to turn as see me coming.  
The second I wasn't holding my sword anymore, all of that bloodlust went away. I was horrified at the fact that I was seconds away from taking another life.  
I stopped dead on my feet, so close to them now, but too afraid to move.  
Karai glared at me and turned back around to swing her sword at my brothers.  
And in the absence of the bloodlust was the need to protect my brothers, stronger than it had ever been before.  
I found my eyes locked on Mikey's and not on Karai's sword as it actually fell down towards them.  
I was flying through the air, watching Mikey's eyes as they shifted from the blade to me. His light blue eyes reflected nothing but horror when he met with my eyes.  
For the second time that night, I heard the sound before I felt anything.  
It was even worse that the popping sound. I had never heard the sound of flesh tearing. It was literally the most disgusting sound in the universe.  
The first thing I felt was cold. Freezing cold that ran up the space between my plastron and my shell. It was the same shoulder I had injured earlier. The metal of Karai's sword was completely freezing.  
The second thing I felt was tearing. I had torn hundreds of things in my life, but I never had actually _felt_the feeling of being torn. It was the worst pain I've ever felt in my life.  
The third thing I felt was cold again. The feeling of my blood leaving my body…it was the last thing I was able to be completely attentive to.  
I hit the ground…I knew I hit the ground.  
My mind was swimming, I was completely and totally out of my head. the only thing I was absolutely sure of was that I completely sure of was that Karai had stabbed me.  
There were voices, coming from everywhere.  
"_LEO!_"  
"_LEO, NO!_"  
"_LEO, STAY WITH US!_"  
_I will_, I tried to say, but I couldn't find my lips.  
Everything was cold. So immensely cold, and it was getting impossibly colder.  
And impossibly darker.  
I blacked out.


	2. Chapter 2

_I couldn't believe any of it.  
Not only that, but I refused to believe that any of the events of this night had occurred.  
It was a dream— no, a nightmare.  
A horrible nightmare that I would wake up from.  
None of this was really happening.  
But even though I refused to acknowledge that any of these events were happening, I still was pushing myself beyond my limits to fix them.  
I was racing to get back to our lair in the Shellraiser, my foot nailed to the floor on the gas pedal with Donnie yelling at me to keep the ride steady.  
Master Splinter was missing.  
And Leo was bleeding to death from a sword inflicted wound.  
No…none of it. None of it could be real.  
But with every single cry of pain Leo gave out, I was reminded that this hell might actually be reality._

_*****Post-Booyakashowdown, Pre-Follow the **__**Leader.**_

_**Raphael's P.O.V.**_

They say you see your life flash before your eyes when you're about to die. You see all these significant moments replay and remind you of all the good times you had before it all comes to an end.  
That was a complete lie.  
What you really see is your older brother, diving in front of you to take the hit for you and to save your shell.  
Leo had gone through hell that night.  
I had seen it.  
All night, I had seen him take hits and blows to his pride and I had not seen him react badly once.  
He had kept his cool all night, but I knew my brother. I knew he was freaking out inside.  
He deserved none of shit he was getting that night.  
And it all started back in the lair…

***  
"My sons," he spoke calmly, his words betraying the feelings I seemed to be the only one picking up from him. "Go and gather your weapons. We must leave immediately to see what this plan is."  
That was the first red flag for me, the fact that Sensei planned on coming with us. I looked back at my brothers, and it was like we all had the same confused expression on our faces.  
We kicked butt on our own, so why the heck did Sensei feel the need to come with us?  
We were all making our way out, none of us ready to question Master Splinter's unusual decision.  
I was trying to remember where I had placed my Sais when I noticed Leo wasn't behind me anymore.  
"Leonardo," Master Splinter said. "I wish to speak with you."  
The second red flag went up. The last time Sensei had talked to Leo alone like that was the night the Kraang invaded. The night Sensei told Leo that those alien blobs had to be stopped no matter what.  
The night Leo almost died for us…twice.  
I stepped to the side, hiding myself behind the door to listen in on their conversation.  
Donnie and Mikey kept walking ahead, chattering on about something and not noticing that Leo and I weren't behind them anymore.  
"Hai, Sensei," Leo responded, always having to be perfect and respectful.  
Gag.  
Sensei seemed to pause for a moment before he spoke again.  
"I am coming with you," he started.  
I almost scoffed. Like that wasn't obvious…  
But he still didn't explain why.  
"May I ask why…?" Leo asked the question none of us were brave enough to actually ask.  
I leaned in slightly closer to the door, determined to hear the answer.  
"Hey Raph!" Mikey's booming voice startled me.  
I looked to him, both stunned and annoyed. What could he possibly have to say that required him to sneak up on me like that?!  
"WHAT?!" I roared as I realized I was going to miss the rest of Sensei and Leo's conversation.  
"Geez bro," Mikey's face fell. "Just letting you know Spike got out and he's in the kitchen."  
I sighed, and dragged myself to the kitchen. Spike was sitting there on the counter top, looking all around for food.  
Gently, I picked him up and carried him to his cage in my room. The cage was rested perfectly atop my shelf where I kept it. There was no way Spike got out on his own.  
I made a mental note to get Mikey back for that, and left my room to retrieve my Sais and hopefully catch some piece of Leo and Sensei's conversation.  
As soon as I was nearing the dojo's main entrance, Sensei walked out. I stopped and looked in a different direction, hoping he wouldn't acknowledge me.  
"Raphael," he called to me.  
Well, so much for that.  
"Come," he simply said, walking towards the Shellraiser.  
He really was coming with us. I starred after him for a moment, confused to see he had a bow and a few arrows slung over his back.  
Before I followed him, I looked back into the dojo to find Leo looking pretty…overwrought? He was just starring at the ground, like he was upset, shocked, and confused all at once.  
I considered going in there and asking him what was up, but before I could move, he simply shook his head and started walking towards the exit.  
He kept his eyes on the ground as he walked, and when he passed me, he didn't even stop to acknowledge me in any way. I didn't get so much as a single glance from him.  
Something was wrong with Leo, and I felt like Sensei had something to do with it.  
Again, mental note to get Mikey for making me miss that conversation later…

I sat at my station in the Shellraiser quietly the entire ride. I was piecing together scenarios in my head, trying to picture what could have possibly bothered Leo so much and why Sensei had chosen to come with us.  
Leo sat in his driver's seat, totally silent and strained.  
Usually during that part of our missions, he was reciting the plan to us. Now he was completely silent, and it was eating away at me.  
"Wanna drive ANY faster there, Fearless Leader?" I poked at him.  
I wanted to see a reaction, I wanted him to respond. But I got nothing. And that ticked me off even more…  
"Raphael is right," Master Splinter shocked all of us by agreeing with me. "Leonardo, we are on a tight schedule, we must get to their location now if we are to utilize the element of surprise."  
Leo's only response was to speed the Shellraiser up. He remained absolutely still.  
Something was really bothering him.  
"My sons, I am taking the lead on this mission," Master Splinter started to say, but I wasn't actually paying attention to him.  
I was more focused on Leo, who seemed to be more focused on the road than Splinter's plan as well.  
I watched for his mannerisms, hoping they could lead me to conclude what was getting him so down. I knew it was whatever he and Splinter had talked about back in the lair, but I had no clue as to what that was.  
And God did I hate not knowing things…  
It took me a few moments of silence to realize that Sensei had just told us he was going to lead the mission. Not Leo.  
The word replaced was the only thing that came to mind, and knowing my brother as well as I did, that was what was eating him up.  
He felt defeated and inferior.  
That was all.  
My heart broke for poor Leo, not because I was going soft or anything, but because I knew he didn't deserve it.  
There were always those times when I questioned Leo's decisions and calls, because most of the time I just didn't agree. But the jerk's usually right, and he didn't deserve to be torn down the way Master Splinter was tearing him down.  
It didn't even make any sense. Why was Sensei so intent on this Foot ambush?Something was up, and Leo was totally in on it.  
I turned my attention to the rest of Sensei's plan, hoping I could piece it all together before the actual brawl started.

The water was freezing.  
I held onto on of the pillars supporting the dock as I shivered in the cold. Why did I let Mikey tell me that hiding in the water in the middle of God damn November would be a good idea?  
I probably could have hid up on the actual dock itself like Donnie had; there were crates to hide behind everywhere. But here I was, freezing inside my shell in the harbor water.  
I tried to distract myself by focusing on everything else.  
When we arrived, I had only seen two Foot ninjas up on the rooftop overlooking the whole scene. Too bad I wasn't there to take care of them.  
"Do you think it's okay to keep my nunchakus in water like this…?" Mikey questions from a few yards away.  
"What do you mean?" I asked him, not really concerned about the state of his weapons.  
My Sais were submerged in water too, why did it matter?  
"You've gotten them wet before," I pointed out to him.  
"Yeah," he kept his eyes on his nunchakus in his hands. "But Donnie told me that metal rusts when it's been in water! I love my nunchakus, and I can't exactly release my hot nunchaku fury if they're rusted!"  
He spoke to me like I was the one who was clueless. I decided he'd distracted me enough that night.  
"I think they'll be okay for your 'hot nunchaku fury'," I rolled my eyes and turned my attention back to the rooftop where the sole Foot ninjas was watching.  
But he wasn't there anymore…Instead, they were replaced by Sensei perched on top of the roof overlooking the dock, Leo running up to join him.  
Well, that situation was taken care of.  
Now all we could do was wait for this Foot meeting to go down, all of us in our ready positions.  
And I continued to feel bad for Leo. It must have been so awkward being up their with Splinter after the way he had been treating him all night.  
I didn't have any time to dwell on it.  
A black car arrived at the center of the dock and Karai quickly jumped out of it before it could drive off.  
I clenched my teeth together to silence my teeth's chattering and tried to listen in on whatever these Foot losers were up to.  
…Actually, I was just more set on waiting for Splinter's signal so I could bash some goons. Honesty is the best policy, right?  
"Tonight, we're here to assemble all of Shredder's weapons for the next phase of our plan," Karai shouted out to her newly formed line of Foot ninjas.  
Where had they come from? They definitely hadn't been there a few moments ago.  
And new weapons? I was pretty sure we dealt with this exact same situation months back when the Kraang first brought out the stealth ship.  
I kept my eyes locked on Sensei and Leo on the roof, and my ears focused on Karai…not that listening was too hard. She was basically screaming everything she was saying.  
"Nothing can go wrong on this night," she continued to scream at her small army that was right in front of her.  
Why the hell did she need to talk to loud? I really hated this chick, and I failed to see what Leo had ever seen in her.  
"So that's why we're going to stop any turtles and their rodent master from getting in the way tonight," she concluded.  
Well, damn. There went the element of surprise.  
I didn't actually see what she had done. My eyes were still glued to the rooftop.  
"SENSEI!" Leo screamed, diving into him and pushing him out of the way as Karai's throwing stars barely missed them.  
The two of them tumbled over the side, falling off the side of the building.  
I froze, completely shocked and unable to move. I was about to watch my older brother and my dad fall to their deaths.  
Splinter reacted quickly enough, and grabbed the ledge of the roof with his left hand. With his right, he caught Leo and the two of them were suspended, out in the open.  
My eyes shot to Karai, who was preparing to strike at her now too easy targets. Her Foot ninjas were already running towards Leo and Splinter.  
Yeah, like hell I was gonna give 'em that chance.  
"C'mon, Mikey!" I shouted, pulling myself up.  
I was done waiting for a signal. I didn't think Sensei could give us one at that point anyway.  
Mikey and I ambushed the Foot ninjas, jumping on them and stopping them from reaching their targets.  
Karai was now fumbling with her shuriken. I was pretty sure me and Mikey's surprise ambush took her off guard.  
Okay, so the element of surprise wasn't totally lost.  
In addition to our attack, I saw Donnie use his Bo staff to catapult himself right on top of Karai. She hit the ground hard and as I blocked the oncoming attacks, I hoped that hurt her.  
That's what she deserved for trying to hurt my family.  
"Leonardo!" I heard Sensei yell.  
I held back three swords in my Sais and looked up to see that Sensei was clearly struggling with holding both of them up by one hand.  
I had to get to them. I had to get up to that roof and pull them both up before they fell.  
Using all of my strength, I pushed the three Foot ninjas back and slammed all three of them with a kick. They all crashed into the ground in a pile.  
As I turned on my heel, I saw Mikey get slammed in his chest.  
"OW!" he cried as he slammed into a wall.  
A couple more Foot ninjas were creeping towards him, swords drawn.  
"Mikey!" I yelled, running towards my brother. Without warning, more blades rained down upon me and I barely managed to block them all.  
Where were all these guys coming from?  
This mission was an embarrassment. Everything that could have gone wrong was going wrong.  
I was literally putting 110% of my strength in holding back those goons. I hadn't ever remembered lowly Foot ninjas being this much of a challenge before.  
'Hang on, Mikey, I'm coming!' I thought to myself as I felt my feet starting to slide back.  
For the first time in my life, I was being overpowered.  
"Let me go, Sensei!" I heard Leo yell from the roof.  
What?! What was he doing?!  
Was he trying to sacrifice himself again so that Sensei could get up and help us?  
I was not going to live through that again. No way in hell was I going to feel that pain again.  
But I looked over and it was too late.  
Leo was falling…sideways?  
And then I understood; Leo was running on the wall.  
I remembered always seeing Leo try to run on the walls when we were kids. He watched this one ninja movie every day trying to break down how the actors did it, how the warriors defied gravity and ran on the walls. It usually ended up in a lot of tears scraped knees, hence the knee pads we wear.  
Eventually, Leo got too big and there wasn't enough space for him to try anymore. The more we grew up, the more Sensei was able to get decorations and hang things in our home. Leo had to give up on his dream, and I never saw him try again. I guessed he never gave up on the idea, though.  
It seemed like he was doing fine until he unexpectedly dove towards the trashcans a few feet away from him.  
I couldn't bare to see him hit the ground, so I turned and pushed all of those guys off of me. I punched two of them, and kicked the third one so hard, he went flying back.  
When I turned back around, I saw Leo stumbling around like he was drunk grasping his shoulder. I noticed that his arm was hanging down in a sickening way.  
Something was broken, his arm just didn't look right at all.  
And without any warning, he slammed his shoulder into the wall, I guess attempting to fix the problem.  
I swear on my life, I heard some kind of popping sound. It was so unnatural sounding, and it make me want to puke.  
Something slammed into me in my moment of distraction. My Sais flew out of my hands as I was sent flying and crashed into Mikey who was back on his feet until I hit him. We both tumbled on the ground and slammed into the wall with more Foot ninjas creeping towards us.  
We had no way to defend against their weapons with out bare hands.  
Fantastic.  
Just as their weapons were coming towards us, two swords blocked the strikes.  
I looked over to see Leo gasping for air as he held all five of those guys back.  
"Leo!" Mikey screamed from right next to me. "Hang on, bro!"  
Mikey frantically began reaching for his nunchakus, stumbling to his feet.  
"NO!" He yelled back at us. "Go help Donatello with Karai! I can finish these guys off!"  
That was the third red flag of the night for me. Leo didn't use our full names unless there was extreme urgency. And tonight, there definitely was.  
I had almost forgotten about Donnie, and the fact that he was facing off against Karai on his own. No way he could have handled her by himself.  
Still, I wasn't leaving Leo to fight off these guys alone. Especially after I had seen his shoulder injury.  
"You—You got it!" Mikey seemed a little hesitant, but he ran off to Donnie's aid.  
I was able to reach my Sais with my hands, and I rose next to my brother ready to help him.  
Standing, I could see Donnie and now Mikey fighting against Karai. Donnie definitely looked like he had taken some hits from her, whereas Karai looked like she wasn't faced with a challenge. Even Mikey's speed wasn't enough to stop her.  
I looked back before me when I realized Leo was inching towards me. He was being pushed back just like I had been.  
I only gripped my Sais tighter, ready to attack.  
"RAPHAEL," he screamed my full name, knowing I hated that shit. "I SAID GO."  
I took a shaky step back. The last time Leo had screamed at us, at me like that was when he almost died on the Technodrome.  
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the harbor, the exact location where that had occurred.  
It cut me pretty deeply to remember the pain I felt when I almost lost my brother.  
I couldn't move; I was locked in place. I forced my head to turn away from that view and saw Donnie and Mikey getting their own shells kicked by Karai.  
And I realized that Leo was right; my little brothers needed me.  
I didn't want to leave, but I slipped from around the back of him and ran towards my brothers.  
Several more Foot ninjas appeared before me, blocking my path. In that moment, I realized that more ninjas weren't appearing…the ones we knocked down were simply coming back.  
They had never been that tough before, what was going on?  
I prepared to defend as they all ran towards me when out of nowhere, arrows shot past me and knocked the Foot ninjas to the ground, pinning them down by their clothes. Not actually piercing them.  
Not actual lethal force.  
My eyes shot up to see Sensei, aiming his loaded bow towards the other ninjas surrounding me.  
He then jumped down off of the roof, landing on the ground next to me with ease.  
Show off…  
He nodded at me, and I smiled back at him. My father protected me, and I put all my

_**trust**__ in him, knowing no matter how bad this situation seemed, he wouldn't let anything happen to me or my brothers. His family.  
The time for messing around was over.  
I hurled myself at Karai,  
Before I could make contact with her, she jumped out of the way, and I slammed into the crate she had been in front of.  
I was quick to recover, turning and glaring at her.  
She smiled at me and dodged Mikey's nunchaku without even seeing it coming.  
She wheeled around on her foot and tried to kick Mikey. Thankfully, his speed helped him dodge the attack, and he jumped back avoiding the next one as well.  
That was all we had to do; we have to keep her busy until Leo and Splinter could get here and help us. There was no way she could have held all five of us back, no matter how good she was.  
My positive thoughts didn't last very long when I saw Karai's hand grab Donnie by his belt. She redirected the force of his attack and sent him colliding into the crate he had been hiding behind in the first place.  
He didn't get up. He stayed perfectly still, and I literally could not move.  
I knew he was alive when he moaned in pain.  
I roared as I ran after Karai, she was definitely going to pay for hurting Donnie.  
She somehow managed to flip over me. If the moment was in slow motion, I'd say I didn't even have time to look up at her in the air when her foot slammed into me and sent my flying towards Donnie.  
My head hit the crate before my body did, and I landed on top of Donnie completely dazed.  
I was too dizzy to comprehend the next few moments in time. It took every ounce of my concentration to process my surroundings with any form of clarity. Everything around me was spinning, and before I knew it, Mikey rolled up to Donnie and I, also beaten down by Karai.  
Karai was standing before us looking down and smiling.  
"Is that the best you turtles can do?" she laughed at us.  
I could barely understand what was going on, but I could tell she was mocking us, and I would have given anything to be able to stand up and smack that grin off of her face.  
"Pathetic," she spit at us, but I felt more so than to me than the others.  
My head rolled to the side, and I noticed Leo frantically fighting against multiple Foot ninjas to try to get to us.  
Our eyes met for a millisecond, and I could basically read the urgency in him. He was never more concerned about us in his life.  
I could only hear my breathing as I looked over to Master Splinter, who simply stared at Karai with his bow and his arrow aimed at her.  
Of course he was going to save us. He wouldn't let anything happen to us. He would go against his morality and use lethal force if he had to for his family. He loved us that much, I knew he did.  
But for some reason, he never fired.  
He lowered the bow as he looked directly at Karai, who paid him no attention. It was like we didn't exist, the way he looked at her.  
What the fuck?  
"Say goodbye, freaks," Karai reminded me that she was there.  
I looked back up to her to see her raising her sword above us.  
She was going to kill us. Master Splinter wasn't going to stop her, and Leo couldn't get to us.  
Again, fantastic.  
"SENSEI!" Leo cried from his place.  
The way Leo screamed, you could tell he was just as confused as I was. Why wouldn't Sensei shoot? It was our lives on the line and he couldn't stop staring at us like nothing was happening.  
And somehow, Leo pushed everyone off of him, and was charging at Karai with one sword.  
Now Leo was going to kill Karai before she could kill us. Oh, how the tables had turned.  
I kept my eyes on Leo, I had no intention of seeing if Karai was going to strike first or not.  
The fire that burned in his eyes, I had never seen it before. The want to kill— no, the need to kill Karai… It scared me.  
Leo didn't come off as a killer, and I definitely didn't think he had it in him. But the way he was in that moment, his eyes, his actions…  
Leo had every intention of killing Karai without a second thought.  
I knew with every part of me that if he actually succeeded in doing so, he would fall apart.  
There were so many parts of my life where I acted without thought and regretted it.  
Bloodlust didn't suit Leo well at all, and I begged the universe for something to stop him before he ended two lives; both Karai's and his own.  
I think Master Splinter heard me, because without warning, an arrow collided with Leo's katana and the sword fell out of his hand.  
And he stopped dead on his feet, clearly horrified by what he realized he had almost done.  
I was so thankful that Leo wasn't going to destroy himself, but at the same time, I was livid when I realized that saving Leo would be the end of us.  
I guessed it was our turn to sacrifice ourselves for Leo's sake.  
Karai looked back to Leo who was now looking up at her, pleading her not to act. She merely glared at him and turned back to us, ready to finish us. I pulled Mikey and Donnie close and hugged them as I prepared to die.  
Karai's sword was falling towards us when suddenly, Leo dove in front of us.  
Fuck.  
No.  
NO…  
I heard two distinct noises in those exact seconds.  
One, I heard the sound of blood splattering. I didn't think it was actually possibly to heard a noise so low. Donnie probably could have fought me on that for hours, that it was impossible. I swear I heard it.  
Two, I heard Leo inhale once. It was the sharpest intake of air in the history of the universe. The way he gasped, it scared me.  
It scarred me.  
He hit the ground with a thud and was shaking before us as blood spilled from his already swollen shoulder.  
Karai seemed actually a little shaken up by what he did.  
She looked down at her sword glowing red with my brother's blood, then down at him on the ground as he shook and struggled to breathe.  
None of us moved. We all looked down at Leo who was fighting for his life while we just gawked at him.  
"Consider that a warning, freaks," Karai finally spoke. "You—you guys are next."  
With that, Karai and he ninjas disappeared.  
"L—Leo…" I tried to speak, but it was barely audible.  
That was when the moment finally caught up to us.  
Donnie, Mikey and I crawled over to our brother on the ground.  
And that was when I realized that this horrific situation was real._

Donnie gently flipped Leo onto his shell as we assessed our brother's condition.  
Leo's eyes were everywhere at once, not able to focus on a single thing. his shoulder was covered in blood and more kept spilling out of him. He coughed and choked on blood in his mouth and he gritted his teeth together in pain.  
That was when we started screaming.  
"LEO!" I was the first to yell.  
"LEO, NO!" Mikey wailed with tears in his eyes.  
"LEO, STAY WITH US!" Donnie ordered, frantic.  
Donnie went into full on nerd-doctor mode, unwrapping his hands and using the cloth to place pressure on where Leo had been stabbed.  
I waited for any type of order from Donnie, but he was completely set on what he was doing; trying to stop Leo from losing so much blood.  
Leo already looked much paler than he already was, and I could feel my heart rate speeding up with every second.  
Leo looked like he was trying to speak to us, but he couldn't force himself to make a sound other than coughing and moaning in pain.  
My brother was fucking dying, all because Splinter chose not to use lethal force on Karai.  
Splinter…  
I turned my body around to search for him, and was shocked to find him standing right behind us.  
The look on his face, in his eyes…I'll never know how to describe the pain I saw.  
He knew it was his own fault. He knew we had put all of our _**trust**_ into him, and he had betrayed us.  
And now his near-perfect son, his star pupil, was going to fucking die because of his actions.  
The horror that over took Splinter, it rolled off of him in waves. And he deserved every fucking thing he was feeling.  
"We have to get him back home now," Donnie whispered when he realized he could do much for Leo here.  
I turned back to him and looked at Leo's face, his eyes were now closed.  
What. The. Fuck.  
Was he fucking dead?  
Leo shivered in pain as I realized he wasn't. Not yet, anyway…  
We had to do whatever Donnie told us if Leo was going to have a chance of surviving.  
"We have to get him in the Shallraiser immediately," Donnie clarified.  
I looked at Mikey who was eyeing the blood strangely, like he was afraid of it.  
"I'll carry him by the shoulders," I spoke gently to Mikey who had tears spilling out of his eyes.  
I looked to Splinter waiting for him to help us, but he was gone. He was no where to be fucking seen.  
He had fucking run away.  
That fucking coward! Could he not handle what he had caused? None of us could handle this, but we were fucking here, doing what we could to help! And Leo was fighting for his fucking life!  
In that moment, I lost every bit of trust I had in my Sensei…in my father.  
Donnie and Mikey briefly seemed to be searching for him as well, but we didn't have time to dwell on the fact that Splinter was missing.  
Not while Leo was lying there, bleeding to death.  
With no further hesitation, the three of us lifted him and rushed to the Shellraiser.  
I took over Leo's driving position as soon as we were all inside and Leo was strapped down on a makeshift medical table.  
And I don't think anyone's ever driven faster in the history of driving.  
I probably could have raced for Nascar and won some championship or some shit.  
I felt like everything depended on me in those moments. I was the one who had to make sure we made it fast enough.  
I had to get home. I had to find Splinter. I had to get through this.  
_I had to save Leo's life_.


	3. Chapter 3

I hadn't ever found a moment in my life where I needed to be serious.  
My brothers were always being serious for me, especially Leo.  
He was serious enough for all of us all the time. He was always being the responsible one so that I was free to be me, and to do whatever I wanted to do.  
But in that moment, Leo couldn't be serious. He was too busy trying to stay alive.  
He kept waking up and falling asleep again, mumbling words and stuff that I couldn't really understand.  
Donnie was yelling all of these instructions to me and expecting me to know how to follow them.  
Raph was in the front completely silent driving crazy fast to get us home in time.  
And I didn't have a clue as to what I was supposed to do.  
I wasn't ever serious, so how was I supposed to know how to save Leo's life?

_*****Post-Booyakashowdown, Pre-Follow the **__**Leader.**_

_**Michelangelo's P.O.V.**_

It was probably the scariest moment of my entire life; even scarier than when those squirrelanoids had me and were dragging me down into the dark water.  
Maybe it would have been better if those crazy monsters had killed me then.  
Karai was standing over Donnie, Raph and I, holding a sword over us.  
I was so scared; we all were, but I think I was the most scared.  
Near death experiences are not easy to get over, and if anyone ever says they are, they are a liar.  
I was still super freaked out by how I almost drowned back in the sewers a few days before, so I could never understand how Leo dealt with the times he almost died. Like when he fell off of that super tall secret Kraang building, TCRI…or like he stayed behind on the giant floating shippy ship the Kraang had brought here right before the big purple explosion.  
I'd never understand how my brother could be so fearless, even though he hated when Raph ever called him that.  
So there I was, about to get cut up by Karai. I really hate that woman…  
But in that moment, I couldn't look at her. I had to look at anything but her. I didn't want to know when it was coming. I just didn't want it to hurt too bad…  
That was how my eyes found Leo, running towards us with one of his swords.  
And man did he look angry.  
No, I mean really really _really _angry. So angry, it was almost as scary as Karai's sword that about to hurt us. He looked like he was mad enough to kill her, and Leo is _not_ a killer. Leo is the "we should avoid fighting if we can" kinda guy.  
I don't know how to explain it, he just likes to see the best in people. But judging from his eyes, he couldn't find the best in Karai anymore.  
He was really gonna kill her…  
Or at least he was, until an arrow hit his sword and sent it flying out of his hands.  
_No_.  
I didn't want to believe it, but I knew it was true. Master Splinter was the only one who could have shot that arrow. He was the one who brought the arrows, but he wouldn't do that. No, he wouldn't have stopped Leo who was gonna save us…  
I looked over refusing to believe that my dad would have ever done such a thing, but sure enough, I was right. I hated when I was right.  
When Leo's sword hit the ground, he stopped running towards us, looking over at Splinter in shock.  
Karai turned around and realized Leo had been coming for her, and I think she muttered a bad word.  
But she didn't wanna waste any more time.  
She turned back to face us and raised her sword again. This time, I couldn't _not_ look at the sword. I was too afraid to look away.  
I felt Raph pull me closer to him as I realized this was it for us.  
That was when I saw the color blue.  
Leo was flying in front of the three of us, sideways. He jumped in the way to block Karai's sword.  
_Awesome timing, Leo_!  
But as my eyes connected with his, I realized he didn't have any way of actually blocking that sword. His eyes reflected the same amount of fear that I had.  
There are certain moments in your life when you remember the exact details of a situation. Donnie told me it's due to this stuff called adrena—adrenalion…? …Something like that. It just makes you more hyperaware. My adrena-whatever definitely locked those moments in my brain.  
I heard Leo gasp as I watched Karai's sword hit him in between the front of his shell and the back of his shell. Right where his shoulder was.  
He never screamed. He never made a noise other than that gasp. He sucked in a huge gulp of air and hit the ground a few feet away from us without another sound.  
_Oh. My. God._  
It felt like time was frozen. I waited for Leo to move. I waited for him to get up.  
None of us moved. Not even Karai. We all remained completely still as we watched Leo. He started shaking like crazy on the ground, and this weird red liquid stuff started surrounding him.  
Oh man…that was blood, and there was _a lot_ of it…  
"Consider that a warning, freaks…" Karai finally spoke.  
I briefly looked up at her. She didn't take her eyes of Leo's shaking body.  
"You—you guys are next," she spoke again, but definitely seemed like she was freaked out by what she did.  
I don't care how tough she comes off as, she definitely was afraid of what she had done.  
She didn't stay for very long, either. Right after she finished talking, she ran off, and her and her Foot ninjas disappeared.  
Raph was the first of us to react, we were all stunned by what had happened. Donnie and I followed behind on our hands and knees as we crawled towards Leo.  
I did everything I could to avoid that blood that was all over the place. How could a person have so much blood in their body?! It was freaking me out!  
Years ago, there was this one time I had snuck in Raph's room and found his comic book stash. Raph and I both liked comics, but we liked really different types of comics. I liked super hero comics, and he liked scary and violent comics. He had always told me I wouldn't have liked to see his, and never actually let me try to read them. I decided I was tired of being treated like a kid, and went in his room and read as many of those comics as I could.  
He was right, they were so much different than my own. I hated them, they scared me. There was so much blood and gore in his comics, and I put them down. It took me weeks to be able to sleep in my own room again. Leo just let me camp out in his room with him after I told him what I did. He told me I could stay with him as long as I needed to.  
I hated Raph's comics. And I vowed I would never see something like that ever again.  
Seeing it in a comic, and seeing it in real life…there isn't a way to describe it.  
I stayed the farthest away from Leo's body, too afraid to get too close to all that blood…  
Donnie and Raph were a lot more intent than me. Donnie went into his doctor mode that he gets into when one of us gets hurt.  
He and Raph gently flipped Leo over so Donnie could look over his more.  
I had never regretted a single slice of pizza in my life, but when I saw Leo, I realized I never should have eaten half of a pizza before we left the lair.  
I had to fight with everything in me not to hurl…  
Leo was breathing so heavily, looking everywhere at once. His eyes would seriously not stay on one thing.  
He was shaking and had blood all over the front of him, even a little bit coming out of his mouth.  
It was the single more grossest thing I'd ever seen, and I couldn't hold back my tears.  
"LEO!" Raph was the first of any of us to speak.  
He clenched his fists together tightly and kept his eyes locked on Leo's.  
"LEO, NO!" I couldn't not scream after Raph's outburst.  
I was begging him to stop bleeding, to not die. I was so scared that Leo was going to close his eyes forever in that exact second, and that was not something I could handle.  
"LEO, STAY WITH US," Donnie's cry was more of an order than an actual sad cry.  
Donnie was definitely doing his doctor thing. Raph and I watched as he unwrapped his wrists and pressed down directly on Leo's shoulder.  
I watched as Leo's eyes almost popped out of his head.  
He snapped his eyes shut. He was in so much pain, and he was fighting it with everything he had.  
And then he wasn't shaking anymore. He was still.  
I think my heart skipped a beat.  
"We have to get him back home now," Donnie whispered.  
Leo still wasn't moving. Was he…  
No. No, he couldn't be. Not my big brother. Not here, not now…  
_Please…  
_It was like Leo had mind reading powers and heard my thoughts, because he spazzed out a second later.  
"We have to get him in the Shallraiser immediately," Donnie said, looking over towards our ride.  
I looked in horror as I realized that Donnie's cloth that he was holding on Leo had changed from white to completely red.  
"I'll carry him by the shoulders," Raph spoke directly to me.  
I think he knew that Leo's blood was seriously creeping me out.  
All three of us readied ourselves to take on Leo's weight, Raph at the shoulders and Donnie and I each took a leg.  
And I looked over to see that Master Splinter was gone.  
Where the heck could he have went?  
I didn't have any time to think of anything, because Donnie and Raph hoisted Leo up, and I jumped up with them.  
Leo groaned as we moved him, and I tried to be gentle. I didn't know what else I could do…  
Donnie rushed us all into the Shellraiser. Where were we supposed to put Leo? On the ground?  
Donnie lowered Leo's left leg and tried to stand him up. Raph nodded at me without saying anything. I think he meant I could let Leo's leg go and let him lean on Raph.  
Leo was awake again, looking directly at the floor like he was gonna be sick..or pass out again.  
I turned away from him. He was getting a lot more pale and he was still shaking and breathing heavily. It was getting harder and harder to see him like that.  
Donnie was at my spot in the Shellraiser, reaching his hands to the top of my map. He grasped the top and pulled down, revealing a bed.  
If Leo wasn't in serious trouble, I would have told Donnie that was the coolest thing ever. He had his hundreds of little secret things like that in the Shellraiser, and any time we got to see one, it amazed me.  
I was suddenly pushed to the side as Raph helped Leo lay down, while Donnie pulled out his cool medicine box that I wasn't allowed to touch.  
No one was saying anything. Raph jumped in Leo's driver seat and Donnie pulled out a shot thingy.  
I felt so useless, letting everyone have something to do when I was just standing there.  
We were suddenly moving. Raph started the engine and wasted no time in slamming his foot on the gas pedal.  
He was so serious about getting us home in time…and every time Leo made a noise, he only drove faster.  
We were on the complete other side of the city from the lair, and I was terrified that only three of us would make it home.  
"Mikey," Donnie called to me.  
"Y—yeah, Donnie?" I tried to speak.  
I looked over at him to see that Leo was out cold again. How many more times would he wake up, though…?  
"I need you, come here," Donnie instructed, trying to get his shot needle into a jar of clear water stuff. "Hold him down."  
I jumped to his side, ready to help Leo in any way that I could, even if it meant getting his blood on me at this point.  
Up until then, I had been pretty useless. I bet Donnie and Raph could have carried him without me. I couldn't have helped Leo in any way, so I was definitely set on holding him down.  
Still, that determination faded when I actually did get close to the blood again…  
Donnie was clearly struggling to fill that shot thingy with whatever that medicine stuff was. Raph's frantic driving had the whole Shellraiser shaking.  
Donnie had been the most calm out of us since Leo got hurt, but every time he missed getting that needle in, this crazy wildness was growing in his eyes.  
"Mmmm…" Leo's eyes fluttered open while his head shook uncontrollably as the Shellraiser rocked back and fourth.  
"Raph, I need you to keep the Shellraiser steady!" Donnie suddenly started shouting. "Mikey, hold him down please!"  
I told my hands to go down, I really did. I promise I did, but my body just wouldn't listen to me. I was so scared to touch Leo— no, to touch his blood.  
It was weird, how the blood actually became so important to me. Maybe it was because I had never seen such a massive amount in my life?  
"I'm trying, Donnie," I cried, terrified that I couldn't make myself do it. "But there's so much blood here…I don't want to touch it!"  
"Well get the hell over it!" he screamed at me. "Raph can't do it because he's driving!"  
I felt like I couldn't breathe. Oh wait, I wasn't breathing…I sucked in a huge gulp of air and continued to fight against my brother.  
"Let me drive then Raph can come do this!"  
"Mikey, damn it, hold Leo down!" Donnie roared as he tried to get the stupid needle in to his jar again.  
I panicked. Donnie never yelled at me like that before. It made me all the more scared to touch Leo.  
We hit a sharp turn and I grabbed onto Leo's table bed thing for balance before I fell. His head turned towards me and his eyes met with mine.  
I've seen this type of thing happen in comic books, when the hero has a scary serious moment with the person who needs him to rise up.  
That was Leo and me. Leo had always been the hero for me, saving my shell when I needed him, no matter what it meant. Even if it meant facing a giant Kraang robot monster in a sinking alien ship, or taking a sword to the chest so I wouldn't have to…  
Leo needed me to get over my fear to help him.  
To save him…  
"MICHELANGELO," Donnie's next scream broke through to me. "He's going to _die_ if you don't help me!"  
Donnie finally got his needle into the jar correctly and filled the shot thingy with the water stuff.  
Leo's eyes started to droop, and I didn't give it another thought. My hands shot down on him, holding him as still as I could with Raph's crazy driving.  
His body was like ice. It was so cold, and Leo couldn't stop shaking. I swear I could feel his heart beating in his chest with every breath he took.  
And I could feel a cold, sticky slimy liquid covering my hands.  
_For Leo, for Leo, for Leo…_ I chanted over and over again in my head.  
"Leo, can you hear me?" Donnie asked from beside me.  
I looked over at him, flicking his needle with his fingers.  
"Where…where is Sensei…?" Leo mumbled with his eyes completely closed again.  
All of us tensed, because none of us knew the answer.  
"…I'm—I'm gonna make the pain go away, Leo," Donnie was speaking directly to him, using his free hand to draw an invisible target near Leo's wound. "Mikey, keep him as still as you can, and move your hands to here."  
He pointed to the location and I followed his instructions.  
"What is that, Donnie?" I asked him as I watched him raise the shot.  
"A syringe, Mikey," he told me.  
"No, I mean what's that stuff inside of it?" I tried again.  
He was holding the syrin—syringe thingy in a way I'd never seen a person hold a shot before. He had his whole fist wrapped around it while he used his other hand to help me hold Leo down.  
Donnie took a deep breath.  
"It's morphine and anesthesia," he whispered.  
I watched as Donnie stabbed Leo with the shot super close to where Karai had stabbed him.  
_Oh. My. God_.  
Leo's eyes shot open as the needle entered his body. He gasped and tensed under my hands.  
I almost threw up. I jumped back and released my hold on him, tripping and landing on my butt. Instinctually, my hands flew to cover my mouth, but I stopped them. They were covered in blood…  
Now I was shaking uncontrollably. It was so gross and so scary, and why did Donnie just stab Leo?!  
I hesitantly looked up to see Leo relax more and more as Donnie pushed the end of the shot down, and all that morphine stuff went into Leo's body. His breathing even slowed down a lot, and he stopped shaking.  
After a few seconds, he looked like he was sleeping again.  
"That should keep him under for a while…" Donnie began talking to himself.  
"Wh—wh—"I tried to question Donnie, but I was so freaked out and I couldn't stop stuttering.  
"That's how you inject morphine, Mikey," he answered. "The anesthesia will keep him asleep and slow his heart rate down. _That_ should slow the pumping of his blood and could very well be the only thing that can save him at this point."  
I just sat there on the floor watching Donnie throw his needle…shot…syringe thingy back into his box and grab more stuff out of it. He began wrapping Leo up in some stuff that looked like mummy wrap.  
"Thank you," he muttered to me, totally focused on wrapping Leo around his cut.  
He tossed me a small package over his shoulder without even turning. I fumbled for it, reading the words on the plastic.  
_Sanitary wipes.  
_Donnie was always prepared.  
I ripped open that plastic wrapper and grabbed the damp towels out of it. I was so eager to get that blood off of me…I wiped down my hands and fingers a bunch of times.  
Even after I was done, I still felt super uncomfortable.  
Donnie threw me two more packs without a word. It was like he just…understood. And I was more than super thankful for him in those moments.  
If anyone could save Leo, it was Donnie. And I put all of my**_ trust_** in him to do it.  
After I went through three packets and got all of the blood off of me, I felt like I could breathe again, though I was still pretty shaken up… I couldn't take my eyes off of my hands. They were clean now, but I still felt like they were covered in blood.  
"How's he lookin'?" Raph spoke in a hard voice from the driver's seat.  
"Not good," Donnie replied emotionless. "He's lost way too much blood already, we need to get him home fast so I can close this gash."  
Raph seemed to pause before he actually said anything again.  
"How fast?" was all he could say.  
"Like, five minutes ago fast," Donnie spoke really low.  
I looked up to Leo's face. He was still sleeping, and his face looked a lot more peaceful. He wasn't grimacing in pain anymore. But I knew he was still in danger. If Donnie was as worried as he seemed, we were in serious trouble.  
"SHIT!" Raph exploded from the front seat, slamming on the breaks.  
I slid across ground and Donnie grabbed onto the table like I had done earlier to keep himself up. He also grabbed Leo and held him in place as the Shellraiser came to a complete stop.  
I slammed into the back of Raph's chair and landed upside down. I looked over and Donnie who was pulling Leo back onto the middle of the table.  
"Raph, we don't have time to stop like this!" Donnie screamed from the back.  
"Tell that to him," Raph spit his words like acid.  
There was so much anger in Raph's voice when he spoke. He was unbuckling his seatbelt and standing up. His hand lifted me up and flipped me over so I was back on my feet too.  
"What's the damn problem?!" Donnie exploded running up to us. "Leo can't make it if we—"  
"Look," Raph pointed to the monitor.  
The first thing I noticed was the street signs. We were already more than halfway home. I wanted to commend Raph for his crazy driving skills.  
The second thing I saw, there was a black car parked sideways in the middle of the road, blocking us from going any farther.  
Seriously? That was the big emergency? A stupid little car?  
"Raphael, we do not have time to stop for one car, push the stupid thing out of the way," Donnie complained turning back to walk to Leo.  
The car's back door opened.  
And the Shredder stepped out.  
_Oh. My. God._  
I didn't think the night could get any worse. I was wrong. I hated when I was wrong.  
"What do we do?" I asked, eyeing Leo who was still unconscious.  
God did we need him in that moment… We had only faced the Shredder twice in our entire lives, and both times, he totally kicked our shells and then some…and that was when there was four of us! Now there was only Donnie, Raph and I…we didn't stand a chance.  
"We take him out," Raph spoke with no emotion. "For Leo."  
I gulped.  
"We have to be quick," Donnie said. "Leo doesn't have that much time."  
"Donnie, I know we're running out of time!" Raph suddenly shouted. "I know Leo is…is…Look, we have to beat this guy. It was his plan to hurt Leo, Karai was not the one who came up with that. I know she didn't. We have to kick his ass for Leo, and to save Leo."  
Raph was always the most emotional of us. We all knew that, no matter how much he tried to hide it. But there were times I caught him speaking to Spike in his room late at night, complaining about either why we annoyed him, or why he was thankful to have us. …But more of the annoying part.  
_Heh, Doctor Prankenstein always got the job done_…  
Raph was right, though. Both times we met the _Shredhead_ (which is totally a better name for the Shredder, I wish it could have been up to me to name him) months ago, we were totally unprepared. Now we had months of training and something to fight for: _our brother's_ _life_.  
Donnie and I nodded, we both knew Raph was right.  
They lead the way outside of the Shellraiser and I looked back at Leo one more time.  
"We're gonna get you home bro, just hang in there a little longer," I begged.  
He didn't respond in anyway, and I tried to ignore that fact. It was like he was already dead… The only reason I knew he wasn't was because I could see his chest going up and down.  
I shook the thoughts from my head as I took my place next to my brothers to face the Shredder. This was it.  
"I see one of you turtles is missing," the Shredder commented. "But I'm assuming that's him all over you, Donatello and Raphael."  
I looked over and noticed Donnie had blood all over him. He didn't clean himself off like I did. Raph's hands were also covered from when he had lifted Leo earlier. I shivered.  
Raph growled right next to me, and I saw him grip his Sais super tightly.  
"He is still alive, isn't he?" the Shredder kept taunting us, even I knew that's what he was doing. "I know he is suffering, Karai said there was no way he would survive her attack."  
With his words, I felt tears in my eyes again…  
"SHUT UP!" Raph screamed.  
"I will offer you three a deal," he kept speaking. "Tell me where Hamato Yoshi is and I will spare you three. I may even offer you a chance to use your skills in the name of the Foot Clan."  
"NO WAY!" Raph instantly denied the offer. "WE'D NEVER TEAM UP WITH THE LIKES OF YOU! WE'RE HERE TO FINISH THIS ONCE AND FOR ALL, SHREDDER!"  
"Raph, keep calm," Donnie whispered to us. "He's trying to get in our heads, don't let him."  
"Too late for that, Donnie," I muttered.  
Raph was at his tipping point. It was obvious in the way he was yelling. It wasn't going to take much more to crack him…  
"Don't be fools like your Master," Shredder continued his annoying rant. "Join me, and spare yourselves the same fate as Leonardo."  
_"Leonardo_."  
That was it, Raph snapped.  
He charged directly at the Shredder, practically exploding with anger.  
I think even the Shredder was surprised at how much force Raph used when he jumped at him. He barely had time to block Raph's Sais with his slasher thingies…  
"DON'T YOU DARE SAY HIS FUCKING NAME!" Raph roared.  
Raph jumped back when he realized he didn't hit, and sprang forward again, but Shredder was more prepared that time. He kicked Raph towards us, and I caught him before he could crash into the Shellraiser.  
Raph stood back up growling.  
"Raph, enough!" Donnie scolded him. "We need a better plan if we're going to take him down."  
"Fools," Shredder barked. "For refusing my generous offer, now you shall perish like your brother!"  
"We don't have time for a plan," Raph said. "Hit him fast, hit him hard, and take him down."  
"Let's go from different angles," I offered, grabbing my nunchakus from my belt and popping my kusarigama blade out.  
"Agreed," Donnie said, drawing his Bo staff from his back.  
"GO!" Raph screamed, leading us.  
I took the left and Donnie too the right. There was no way Shredhead could have stopped us all at once!  
But he didn't actually have to.  
None of us considered the fact that we all had different speeds. Probably a mistake Leo wouldn't have made…  
I got to him first, and he stepped away, dodging my kusarigama. He swept his leg and tripped me up. I hit the ground with a thud.  
To avoid Donnie, he simply jumped back and landed on top of his car. Donnie couldn't stop in time and tripped over me as I tried to avoid him. He landed on top of me and I had the wind knocked out of me.  
As Donnie got off of me and I tried to steady my breathing, I watched as Raph stabbed at the Shredder countless times, and Shredder dodged the Sais like he was playing a video game on easy…super easy.  
There was one point when Raph's Sai went right past his head, and the Shredder grabbed Raph's arm and flipped him over his shoulder.  
Raph hit the ground hard, pinned down by the Shredder. Shredhead raised his gauntlet up, and I held my breath.  
Raph was ready, though. He rolled himself from under Shredder towards us just as Shredder stabbed the ground. We all got back onto our feet.  
"We're better than the last time you faced us, Shredder," Raph mocked him. "We aren't amateurs anymore."  
"So I can see," he laughed evilly, standing back up. "After all, that's how my daughter's blade ended up in your brother, correct?"  
He crouched again, ready for us to attack, and we responded in the same way. Were we gonna repeat the same attack, though?  
Shredder answered that for me when he jumped directly at us, his leg extended. We all jumped out of the way, but he wheeled around as soon as he landed and kicked Donnie.  
Donnie crashed into the car and landed on the ground shaking his head.  
"Donnie!" I cried, slamming into the Shredder and tackling him.  
We both rolled on the ground, but he recovered first, and he grabbed me by the belt. He threw me directly at Raph, who wasn't expecting it and we both tumbled.  
"Mikey, MOVE!" Raph ordered, pushing me out of the way as the Shredder tried to take us out.  
We might have gotten better, but so had Shredhead. It was crazy how much stronger he had gotten.  
I was just getting to my knees when I was lifted off the ground and the Shredder stuck his face in mine.  
"Once I wipe out you pathetic three, I'll go take care of your brother, and hunt down your beloved Sensei," Shredder threatened me.  
I only glared at him. Did he think he could threaten me because I was the smallest? The youngest? The goofy one?  
Heck no, he was not going to get away with that. I loved my big brother too much to let him die by this creep.  
"No, you won't," was all I said.  
I used both of my feet to push off of his chest and did a back hand spring flip to get away from him. I landed by Raph who was helping Donnie get up again.  
"He's toying with us," Raph said as I landed.  
"What?" I asked, totally confused as to what he meant.  
"He's trying to waste time," Donnie explained. "He knows every second counts, he's stalling. Every second we waste keeping him busy is a second Leo is closer to death."  
I felt my eyes widen.  
"That's why he won't finish us yet…" Raph added. "He could have already if he wanted to."  
"We have to get back in the Shellraiser!" I frantically told them as I realized they were right.  
"Like he'll give us the chance…" Raph hissed.  
"We have to try!" I urged. "Negative thinking isn't going to help us, and it's definitely not going to help Leo!"  
Raph looked at me, so doubtful. I stared right back into his eyes, hoping he could understand. After a few seconds, he nodded and turned to face the Shredder, who was still standing there, not attacking.  
Yep, he was definitely buying himself time.  
We weren't going to get passed him easily, but we could do it. If only I had smoke bombs…they were all in the Shellraiser.  
Raph tried to get past him first. He charged at him, trying to jump over him. Shredder grabbed him by the legs, swung him around, and threw him back to Donnie and I.  
"We need something to distract him," Donnie commented while helping Raph back up.  
"Guys," Raph spoke low so Shredder couldn't hear him. "What if I stay behind and hold him off while you guys go?"  
"Absolutely not," Donnie snapped.  
"We're not leaving you behind bro!" I added immediately.  
"Do we have a choice at this point?" Raph questioned, rubbing his wrist on his mouth clearing the blood from the little cut he had there. "We've wasted enough time, Leo's not gonna make it unless we go now."  
We both knew he was right, but neither of us wanted to believe it…  
So this was what it was gonna come to? One of my brothers had to basically sacrifice himself to try to save the other one that we didn't even know was gonna make it himself?  
"Donatello, Michelangelo," Raph used our full names in the silence of our hesitation. "It's okay, I know what I'm doing. Go."  
He turned his back to us to face the Shredder. Donnie and I looked at each other for a second, knowing there was literally noting else that could be done, and there was going to be no changing his mind.  
Remember how I said there were some nights I could hear Raph talking to Spike about us? There was one night in particular I could never forget.  
It was right after the Kraang invasion, like, maybe two days later. He told Spike how much he regretted letting Leo try to die for us twice. He told Spike he felt like he owed Leo… I haven't tried to listen to Raph talk to Spike since that night.  
"Shredder," Raph announced. "This ends now."  
Donnie and I prepared to run. We knew the second Raph attacked…_sacrificed himself_…we'd only have a couple of seconds to get past the Shredder.  
Raph held his hand behind his back, using his fingers to count down for us.  
_Three_.  
I looked at my brother, absolutely wrecked that this is what the night had resulted in.  
_Two_.  
From a regular patrol / mutagen hunt, to a failed Foot meeting ambush, to Leo getting stabbed, to Raph staying behind so we could get away…How did this happen?  
_One_…  
I held my breath.  
"OROKU SAKI!" a voice boomed from the ally on the left side of the street.  
We all, Shredhead included, turned to look at the owner of the voice.  
_No way…  
_"GET AWAY FROM MY SONS!" Master Splinter shouted.  
"Hamato Yoshi…" Shredder cursed in a really low whisper.  
He muttered some words in Japanese I didn't understand, and took a step towards our Sensei.  
Raph, Donnie and I remained perfectly still. I didn't know what was going through their heads at that moment, but I was totally lost. The last time I had seen Master Splinter that night, was when he shot the arrow at Leo's sword…  
Splinter now had another arrow pointed directly at Shredder. He released it and it crashed into the Shredder's armor, bouncing off.  
"If you would like to kill me, Saki," Sensei said, pulling another arrow back. "Then here is your chance."  
He shot the second arrow, and this time Shredder reacted. He dodged the arrow and bolted after our Sensei, clearing our path to the Shellraiser, to Leo.  
That was Sensei's plan…he was helping us escape.  
The two disappeared into darkness of the ally with the three of us staring after them.  
"Let's go!" I shouted at my brothers when I realized this was our chance.  
"R—right!" Donnie stuttered, probably shocked and confused by what had happened.  
Raph didn't say a word. We all ran to Shellraiser and jumped in. Before we did anything else, we all rushed to Leo's side to check on him.  
Some how, he looked even paler than he did when we left him…  
_Oh. My. God…_  
We immediately took our same positions: Raph as driver, Donnie doctoring Leo and me standing behind him watching.  
If I thought Raph was driving crazy before, he was driving _insanely_ now.  
Not only were we on the deadline for Leo now, but we had no idea what had happened to Master Splinter facing the Shredder.  
There was so much that had happened that night, too much that had happened that night.  
By the time we actually did arrive back at the lair after what felt like an eternity of driving, I was halfway expecting to wake up and realize this was a nightmare. There was no way all of this could _really_ happen.  
I could have kissed the ground of the lair I was so happy to be home. In fact, I had _never_ been that happy to be home.  
The first night Master Splinter ever let us go up to the surface, I never wanted to go back home. I wanted to stay up there forever.  
Now I never wanted to go back up there.  
I jumped to the door of the Shellraiser and ripped it open, making way for us to carry Leo out and to Donnie's lab. Raph was next to me kicking everything that had fallen over to the side, so we wouldn't trip on anything. His crazy driving made a mess in the Shellraiser that _we_ would have to clean later.  
_We_ as in the four of us.  
We made it. All we had to do was carry Leo to Donnie's lab, and Donnie would fix Leo. Then he would wake up and everything would be okay! So even if this was a nightmare, it had a good ending.  
I was so happy it was all over.  
"Guys…" Donnie whispered.  
Raph and I looked up to him.  
"…Leo's _not_ breathing."


	4. Chapter 4

A lot of things scared me.  
Raph's comic books, wasting pizza, Senei when we didn't clean up our messes…I faced scary stuff all the time.  
And I always came out on top.  
I took down mutant monsters over and over, almost dying a few times too! I've taken down more alien robots and ninja assassins than I can count with my hot nunchaku fury.  
But this one thing was paralyzing.  
I've never been more scared of anything in my whole life than this one thing.  
_Blood_.  
And there was so much of it everywhere.  
I wanted to get away from it, but I couldn't.  
I knew I couldn't. I knew I had to stay and somehow face this fear.  
If I didn't Leo wasn't going to make it.

_*****Post-Booyakashowdown, Pre-Follow the**__**Leader.**_

_**Michelangelo's P.O.V.**_

I was crying. I was bawling like a big baby.  
Nothing like this had ever happened to me before. To my family before…  
The whole night had been a mess.  
It started when Master Splinter had shot an arrow at Leo's sword so he couldn't stop Karai from attacking us. Then it lead to the longest Shellraiser ride in the history of the whole universe. Followed by a battle with the psycho Shredder who was trying to kill Leo by wasting all of our time to save him. Then lastly, Sensei showed up out of nowhere and helped us get away so that we could save Leo.  
"Guys…" Donnie had whispered from Leo's side when we finally made it home and it seemed like everything was gonna be okay.  
Raph and I looked up at him, confused.  
"…Leo's _not_ breathing."  
I fell to my knees.  
And all of that got me here, curled up in the corner of the Shellraiser, crying. Hysterically and inconsolably crying.  
"Fuck, fuck, fuck," Raph chanted as he pushed Leo's chest up and down.  
I'd never heard of CPR working on a turtle before, but I think we were completely out of options. And I had no better ideas, anyway…  
Donnie had yelled at Raph to start doing CPR right before he ran out of the Shellraiser.  
"Fuck, C'mon Leo!" Raph was getting more and more urgent. "I need you to breathe, I need your heart to start pumping, ANYTHING!"  
He was starting to get a crazy look on his face as he continued pushing up and down. Desperation had completely taken over him, and I could only sit there and sob.  
Leo wasn't responding at all.  
We didn't fight hard enough. If we were better and took Karai more seriously on the peir, Leo wouldn't have had to get stabbed for us.  
We didn't get away from the Shredder in time. If we had fought harder, we wouldn't have wasted all that time and Leo wouldn't have lost all that…_blood_.  
Leo was dead because we messed up.  
And because I couldn't do anything to save him.  
I was beginning to have all of these flashbacks flood my brain as I realized that Leo was gone.  
I was seeing moments from when we were all little…

***  
_"Raph!" I shouted. "Raph it's my turn!"  
I stood there looking at Raph with tears in my eyes as he held the TV remote out of my reach.  
"Well my show ain't over yet!" Raph laughed, standing on top of the couch holding it over his head and pushing me down by my face.  
I swung my arms in the air trying to get out from under his hands, but Raph was bigger than me and I was weaker than him.  
I was so mad at him, he was a big bully! Sensei only gave us each a little bit of time to pick whatever we wanted to watch on the TV every day. Then we'd have to go into his room with the big tree in it and do stupid, boring ninja training. I didn't like training because my brothers were always better than me, especially Raph. And he liked to make fun of me for it…  
Raph was already done with his TV time, but his movie wasn't over.  
"Just five more minutes!" he kept telling me. "It's almost done, five more minutes!"  
I kept giving him five more minutes until I realized I was almost out of my time and Raph's movie still wasn't over.  
"C'mon, Raph!" i begged him. "It's not fair, it's my turn!"  
"Too bad!" he shot back, watching the TV while still holding me down.  
I looked over at the clock on the wall. I didn't really know how to read what time it was…but the big hand was almost on the big 12, which meant that my time was up.  
I cried. It was the only thing I could do.  
After my turn, it was Leo's turn, and he wasn't going to give up his time. He wanted to watch some show about people on a big rocket ship that none of us really liked. But he loved it, and he told us he wanted to see the episode that was coming on today really badly. I think he said it was his favorite one… I just knew he wasn't going to miss it.  
The big clock on the wall started playing the song that it played when an hour had passed. Raph looked over to it and then back to the TV.  
His movie was over right as my time was over…  
He tossed the remote on the couch and let me go.  
"Thanks, Mikey!" he laughed at me more. "Too bad you don't got any time left, though!"  
He picked up his pet turtle Spike and started walking towards his room.  
Leo still wasn't in the room yet, so I dove for the remote and changed the channel to where my show was on.  
"Michelangelo," I heard my name seconds later.  
I turned to see Master Splinter and Leo looking at me, Leo starring at the remote in my hands. I clutched it tight to my chest, not ready to give it up.  
"Michelangelo, it is 12 o'clock," Sensei said. "It is Leonardo's turn to watch his programs on the television."  
"BUT—BUT—BUT—" I started crying again. "Sensei, Raph took all my time up! I didn't get a turn!"  
"I am sorry, Michelangelo," Sensei told me. "Perhaps I will give you extra time tomorrow and…"  
"But I don't wanna wait til tomorrow!" I whined. "That'll take like, 100 years! I just wanna watch TV now!"  
Sensei sighed as he came and picked me up, Leo followed behind him watching me with his eyes really big. I kicked and cried and fought against him, holding the TV remote as tightly as I could. Sensei pried it out of my hands and handed it down to Leo who still wasn't saying anything.  
I was screaming. He held me firmly as I thrashed in his arms.  
It wasn't fair that Raph got away with taking my TV time! I never got to take any of his! And I didn't want to have to wait to get more. I had been waiting all day!  
I cried for what felt like a really long time, but I think it was only really two minutes… When I calmed down, Sensei placed me on the ground next to Leo, who hadn't changed the channel. He was just starring at me holding the remote.  
I whipped my eyes and looked up at Sensei.  
"Thank you for calming down," he said. "I will speak to Raphael about this, Michelangelo, but it is Leonardo's turn. There is nothing I can do about that. You must learn to accept that sometimes, life will not permit you to have things that you want."  
With that, he turned and walked towards Raph's room, leaving me and Leo alone.  
I tried to think about what he said, but I really didn't know what the word "permit" meant…I just knew I wasn't getting TV time that day.  
"You should change the channel if you wanna watch your space show," I told Leo, still whipping the remaining tears out of my eyes.  
I wasn't mad at Leo, I was mad at Raph…but I was still jealous that it was Leo's turn and not mine.  
Leo reached out and offered me the remote. I starred at him, confused.  
"You can take my turn, Mikey," he said.  
I didn't take it right away, I thought he was playing a trick on me.  
"…Really?" I finally asked him.  
"Mhmm," he nodded.  
"But you're gonna miss your favorite show!" I told him, taking the remote slowly.  
"It's okay, you missed yours," he smiled. "I'll just watch it tomorrow."  
"YOU'RE THE BESTEST, LEO!" I threw my arms around him and hugged him really tight.  
"Anytime, Mikey," he laughed, and sat down on the ground so we could watch my show together.  
The next day Sensei made Raph apologize to me, and I got to take him TV time for me.  
I gave half of it to Leo, and we watched his space ship show, even though I didn't like it.  
_***

"Leo, Leo, please…" Raph's voice broke me out of my vision thing.  
I looked up to him, and he hadn't stop pumping Leo's chest, even though it sounded like he'd already given up.  
What were we going to do without Leo?  
"MOVE!" Donnie exploded, jumping over me with something in his hands.  
I watched him as he rammed Raph out of the way and threw the box down on the table next to Leo. Donnie frantically starting flipping switches and pushing buttons on the box, and I watched as it began to light up. He was in panic mode, moving so fast it was hard to keep up with everything. Donnie took all of these wires and started hook Leo up to them. It was a heart monitor, and it was already flatlining. Leo was already gone.  
That didn't stop Donnie, though. He used his Tanto blade to slit Leo's sash off, and then grabbed two pad things and began to rub them together super fast.  
I think I had seen these things on a movie before, but I couldn't remember what they did…  
"Donnie, what are you—" Raph started to ask.  
"Come on…" was all Donnie said.  
He shoved the pads on Leo's chest, and Leo's body jolted.  
I froze in complete, for lack of a better term, shock. Donnie was trying to restart Leo's heart using electricity.  
My eyes shot to the screen. The heart monitor didn't change.  
"Donnie, STOP!" I begged, not wanted to see Leo's body twitch like that.  
It was horrifying to see.  
"COME ON!" Donnie ignored me, getting ready to do it again.  
I closed my eyes, I tried not to see that happen again. The damage was done, I had seen it once. And I could still hear it. The sound of the electricity hitting Leo, and his body jumping up and landing back down on the bed.  
And then nothing. Silence.  
It was the single most worst moment of my life. Worse than that one time when I was six…

_***  
"Mikey," Leo complained for the millionth time. "Sensei said we can't go off on our own like this…"  
"Aw, c'mon, Leo!" I answered him back. "Don't you wanna try out these awesome new toys?!"  
Master Splinter had finally given us weapons. After watching so many ninja movies on our TV, I couldn't wait to get some of our own.  
Sensei had promised us we would get weapons of our own one day, and that day had finally come.  
…The only problem was, we weren't allowed to use them outside of the dojo.  
Sensei kept all of the weapons in this big treasure chest that was locked. The first night he showed us our choices, (swords, a big wooden stick, some little knife things, and nunchakus which were the coolest things EVER) he put them all back and told us to think about what we wanted to use. Then he locked the chest up with a key and told us it was bed time.  
We all left the room, and I was so disappointed I didn't get to use them yet.  
"I want those swords!" Leo said in an excited voice. "One for each hand, yeah!"  
"Those Sai things are the coolest!" Raph commented. "They would let me still use my hands to punch bad guys in the face!"  
"I liked the staff," Donnie said with his thinking face on. "Do you know what I could do with that thing? Like attaching a blade, or spikes on it…So many possibilities!"  
We were all super excited about the weapons.  
The others all went to their rooms, but I walked over to the kitchen to get a cup of water.  
As I entered the kitchen, I saw Sensei and hid behind the counter. I thought he would get mad at me if he saw me not in my room past my bedtime…  
I peaked around the corner to see what he was doing. He took the key that he used to lock the weapons up and hid it in a cabinet.  
I knew where the key was…  
I slipped out of the kitchen and ran to my room before I got caught. I never did get any water.  
The next night when Sensei actually let us hold them, it was super awesome!  
Leo and Raph weren't allowed to hold the real swords and knife things. Sensei said they were too heavy and dangerous, so they got fake ones made out of wood.  
But I got the real things, the actual nunchakus.  
So. Sweet.  
The night we got to hold them, to use them to hit targets, it was the coolest night of my life. And it didn't last long enough.  
So again I went to bed, the awesomeness of those weapons, those new toys on my mind.  
The next day was Sunday, the day Sensei didn't make us train. He usually locked himself in his room and slept (or I think it was called 'meditated') all day.  
Raph was playing pinball, Donnie was drawing pictures of things he wanted to building, and Leo was trying this thing he'd seen on a movie where the ninjas ran on the walls. He wasn't very good at it, though. He'd been trying to do it for weeks.  
And me? I was sitting there staring at the TV screen thinking about my nunchakus…  
"Ow!" Leo squeaked as he crashed into the ground for the billionth time.  
He was holding his knee to his chest and shaking a little bit.  
"You okay, Leo?" Donnie asked not looking up from his drawing.  
"My knee hurts!" he replied, trying to stretch it out.  
"You probably just need some ice," Donnie replied, totally focused on his work.  
"Don't be such a baby, Leo," Raph said. "We're big now, we get to start playing with real ninja weapons! And if you don't wanna get hurt, stop trying to run on the stupid wall! It's not possible."  
Leo didn't say anything else. He just got up and limped to the kitchen to get some ice.  
That was it, I saw an opportunity…  
I followed Leo into the kitchen, ready to hatch my plan. Leo would totally go for the idea! He was always saying that he was going to be a hero like the captain guy from his space show. This was his chance.  
"Hey Leo!" I peaked my head in to see him sitting at the table and holding a towel with ice cubes in it on his knee. "You okay?"  
"Yeah," he said, removing the ice, inspecting his knee, and putting it back.  
"Are you upset?" I asked him, going through the script of my plan in my head.  
"About Raph?" he answered. "Nah, I'll get it someday. Like Sensei says, keep practicing and don't give up on what you want. Determination is key and—"  
"Well you wanna know what we should do?!" I cut him off, not wanting to listen to a lesson from Splinter Jr.  
Leo was trying to be like him more and more the bigger we got.  
"Hmm?"  
"We should go play with our weapons…" I raised my eyebrows at him, making my offer seem more attractive.  
"Mikey, we're not allowed," he immediately replied, but then paused biting his lip. "We can't even open the box that they're in."  
He wanted to deny it, but he was into my idea…Perfect.  
"What, we need a key?" I grinned, climbing up on top of the counter while he watched me.  
"What are you doing, Mikey…" he ignored my question and eyed me suspiciously.  
"Dude!" I could no longer hide my excitement, ripping the little door open and grabbing the key. "This is Master Splinter's key! Let's go play with our weapons!"  
"Mikey, no way!" Leo hissed. "We'd get in trouble!"  
"Well then let's get our gear and go somewhere else so we don't!"  
I hopped off of the counter. Leo was looking at me like I was crazy, and I was. I just really wanted to play with my nunchakus!  
Leo knew it could work, he knew we could get away with it. He was watching that key in my hand and thinking about it.  
"…No, Mikey, I don't wanna do it," he finally said.  
What a liar! He didn't have to be such a goody two shoes all the time.  
"Well I'm going!" I told him angrily. "When we have nap time, I'm getting them and sneaking out! Don't you dare tell on me!"  
"Mikey, you can't—" I heard Leo say but I stormed out of the room angrily.  
Who needed him? I was gonna have fun on my own.  
Donnie and Raph both fell asleep in the living room, and I hadn't seen Leo since we fought in the kitchen. I assumed he was in his room, though, because his door was closed. Maybe he was mad at me…  
I tried not to care as I snuck into the dojo. I immediately ran to the treasure chest and shoved the key in. My hands were shaking with excitement as I turned it and heard the click.  
"So you really weren't joking," Leo's voice startled me from behind.  
I wheeled around and saw him sitting on a tree branch looking down at me curiously.  
"Don't you dare tell on me, Leo," I glared at him grabbing one of my nunchakus.  
"It's not a good idea," he ignored me, jumping off of the tree and landing on the ground. Well, at least his knee felt better.  
"I don't care," I told him. "You can come with me if you want, but you're not stopping me."  
He sighed, and I pushed passed him, not wanting to waste any more time.  
I stopped myself at the entrance of the dojo and looked back to see Leo trying to lift one of the swords out of the box. He looked really upset as he struggled to lift one of them out.  
I smiled. I was secretly relieved that Leo was coming, I didn't really want to go alone…  
He pulled one of the sheathed swords out that was almost as tall as him. Leo held it against his chest as he looked at it wide-eyed, like he was afraid of it.  
I waited for him to grab the other but he didn't. I think one was heavy enough for him.  
He held it against himself and followed me out of the lair as I walked down the subway tracks.  
"Thought you were too chicken to come!" I laughed, freely swinging my nunchaku around as I skipped along the tracks.  
"I didn't want you to go off alone and get in danger," Leo said quietly and sadly behind me.  
I looked back at him to see him not even playing with the sword! He was just holding it and walking slowly, looking at the ground like he was in huge trouble or like he was sad he broke the rules.  
We weren't going to get in trouble. No way, we'd be back before anyone noticed we were gone.  
"Lighten up, dude," I told him happily. "We won't stay out long! I just wanna test this thing out…"  
I needed a target, and the more and more we walked, the more I realized there was nothing here but train tracks.  
Lame…  
"Can we go back now?" Leo would ask me like every two minutes. "Mikey, come on, let's go home…"  
"Stop whining!" I would tell him. "We'll go home in a minute. Play with your sword!"  
"I don't really want to…it's so heavy…"  
What a party pooper.  
We kept walking and walking. Eventually we found ourselves in parts of the subway I had never seen before.  
It was cool to be in a new place. The lights were actually turned on where we were. The tracks by our lair were always dark because no trains used them anymore. I wondered if I'd get to see an actual train too!  
It was so exciting, and Leo was so depressing.  
My eyes were all over the place, taking in all the newness.  
That was when I saw two things. One, a different light that was really far down the tracks and two, a soda can.  
The can was the more important of the two, because it wasn't just a can. It was a target.  
I jumped up and down, excited.  
"What is that thing…" Leo questioned from behind me.  
I turned to see him squinting and pointing down to the light that was really far away from us.  
"Who cares! I found a target!" I yelled, retrieving the can and balancing it on the tracks.  
"Mikey, I really think we should go," Leo said, still looking over at the light.  
"Oh my gosh Leo, just CHILL!" I shouted, trying to concentrate on balancing the can at the perfect target-hitting angle. "Who cares about whatever that is? It's super far away! Watch this, it's gonna be cool!"  
He didn't look up at me and I chose to ignore him. I gripped my nunchaku and started swinging it, taking my aim.  
"Mikey, that thing is getting closer…" Leo warned.  
I ignored him.  
I swung my nunchaku as hard as I could at the can, and something happened. A knife popped out of it! It slashed at the can and stabbed into the wood on the tracks.  
I thought for a second I broke them, until I realized that knife was actually a part of it.  
Coolest. Thing. EVER.  
"Mikey, we have to go!" Leo said, suddenly urgent.  
"DID YOU SEE THAT, LEO?!" I exploded with excitement. "There's a blade thing on my nunchaku!"  
"It's called a kusarugama, Mikey," Leo was running at me, being a know it all. "AND WE HAVE TO GO NOW!"  
"What are you—" I started to say before I was cut off by a loud noise.  
A horn rang throughout the entire subway. It was the loudest sound I'd ever heard.  
My eyes shot over to the light, which was now much bigger and much, closer.  
And it was getting closer every second.  
If I wasn't directly in its path, I would have thought that seeing a real train and using my nunchakus in one day would have blown my mind.  
"COME ON!" Leo said, diving to the side of the tracks for safety.  
"Hang on, lemme just—" I started to say.  
I tried pulling my kusa—whatever Leo said it was up.  
It was completely immovable, stuck in the tracks. The train was going to run it over and destroy it. I wasn't going to let that happen.  
"MIKEY WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Leo cried.  
"I CAN'T LEAVE THIS!" I screamed back, tears in my eyes.  
There was no way I was gonna let this break! It was my new favorite thing in the world and I didn't want to lose it.  
But that train was so much closer to me than I realized, and I was about to get hit.  
"MOVE!" Leo slammed into me, pushing me out of the way.  
The train shook the ground as it passed up, making the loudest noises ever. Leo was on top of me protecting me, and we were both covering our ears to try to block out the noise.  
The train passed really quickly, because it was going super fast. When it was gone, Leo slowly got off of me and we both sat there for a minute looking at each other.  
And we both burst into tears.  
We hugged each other, shaking because we were both so scared. Leo had saved me and I tried to tell him thank you, but I couldn't stop crying.  
We held each other and cried together for a few minutes until Leo finally stopped crying and was just sobbing a little.  
"Are you—are you okay, Mikey?" he sniffled.  
"Yeah…" I answered, looking towards my where my nunchaku was.  
It wasn't there. My eyes tears up again, I bet it got struck to the train and I wasn't ever going to get it back.  
Leo held out his hand for me and helped me up.  
I went over to pick up his sword for him. It really was heavy, I almost fell over when I finally got it.  
I handed it to him, and he took it to his chest again.  
And he handed me my nunchaku.  
I gasped.  
"H—how?!" I said, taking it slowly and looking at it.  
"I think it got unhooked when I tackled you," he said, starting to walk.  
I followed behind him, and we were quiet the rest of the way home.  
When we finally walked into the lair, Master Splinter was furious.  
He quickly snatched the weapons out from our hands and and threw them away, taking us both in his arms.  
"You are NEVER to do that to me again, my sons," he said, sounding really mad.  
Leo and I just started crying again as we hugged our father. I peaked up over his shoulder and could see Donnie and Raph peaking from around the corner at us, watching us.  
I turned my head back into Sensei, sobbing while he held us both.  
"What were the two of you thinking?" he demanded after a few moments of silence.  
He pushed us back to look at our faces, but kept his arms around us at the same time, not ready to let us go.  
I told Sensei everything that happened, and he was really mad at me.  
He punished me for a week; he took all of my comics, I wasn't allowed to watch TV, and he made me train a lot more than my brothers.  
He didn't do anything bad to Leo, because it wasn't his fault.  
But every day when Master Splinter made me do extra stuff, Leo would always stay behind and do the exercises with me._

In the silence, I heard a beep. A single beeping sound.  
I opened my eyes to see Donnie and Raph staring at the heart monitor screen, which was now animated.  
It wasn't just a line anymore. There was a little jump in the line.  
Leo was _alive_. Donnie's shock pads worked.  
"Guys, c'mon, move!" Donnie suddenly kicked back into action. "We're not through yet."  
Raph quickly sprang into action and together, they lifted Leo and ran out of the Shellraiser towards Donnie's lab.  
I was still sitting there, unable to move and trying to process what had happened.  
All of these flashbacks, these memories were playing in my head, making it harder for me accept Leo's death.  
But Leo wasn't dead, Donnie brought him back.  
_Leo was alive…  
_Oh. My. God.  
I've never run faster in my life.  
I bolted into Donnie lab to see Donnie already had Leo laying down on his lab table, hooked up to a ton of wires and wearing a breathing mask. Raph was standing near Leo's head watching his face for any changes.  
And that beeping sound, that faint little beeping sound telling us Leo's heart was still beating…it was the greatest sound I'd ever heard in my life.  
"So…what now, Donnie?" I asked him, afraid of whatever his answers could be.  
He didn't respond. He kept jumping from one side of Leo to the next, attaching something to him.  
"Raph…?" I tried again.  
I just…I needed a reaction. Both of them were as dead as Leo appeared to be.  
"Michelangelo," Donnie called out. "Get me the box from over there."  
He pointed to a silver box on top of his desk in the corner. A part of me thought that because we were home and because Leo was still alive, we were going to be okay. But if Donnie was serious enough to let me touch one of his boxes…it couldn't have been good.  
I quickly retrieved the box and handed it to Donnie, who wasted no time opening it and pulling out a needle and some weird black thread stuff. It looked like plastic string.  
He was busy threading the strong through the needle while I watched curiously. Where had I seen this before…?  
"Raphael, unwrap him," Donnie ordered.  
Raph didn't exactly unwrap Leo's bandages. He tore away at them, completely ripping them off. Neither of them seemed phased by it, but I was.  
It brought my attention back to Leo's wound, which was still covered in blood.  
And I was gone.

_***  
"Don't touch it!" I screamed at them.  
I was in the corner of the room, curled up defensively. I thought about going into my shell, but that probably would have made it worse.  
"Mikey, we gotta look at it," Donnie shouted at me.  
"NO!" I said. "It hurts!"  
I hadn't even looked at it since it happened. There was just way too much pain, and Sensei wasn't home. He was out getting food for us to eat.  
"No kidding, genius," Raph yelled. "Let us see it!"  
I think he was the most nervous out of all of us, because it was his fault and he didn't want to get in trouble.  
"Mikey," Leo said, calmly. "It's okay, just let us look at it…"  
Leo was the only one who wasn't yelling, the only one I could_ _**t**_**_rust _**_in the whole room…  
"Make Donnie and Raph go away!" I told him, not wanting to deal with them being mean to me._  
_Leo looked at them.  
"…Fine," Raph huffed, and stood up to storm out._  
_"I'll need to see it eventually," Donnie whispered to Leo as he walked them out of the door.  
"I know," Leo replied. "Give me a minute with him."  
I waited until Leo got back next to me to look at my arm, because it really did hurt bad and I was scared to see why.  
We had been playing hide and go seek in, and Raph was it. I chose to hide in the tree in the dojo, there was no way Raph was gonna find me up there!  
l climbed almost all the way to the top, pulling myself up excitedly. I was gonna win the game this time, I hadn't won once yet. Leo had won four times, Raph twice, and even Donnie had beaten me once.  
I was determined to win.  
I felt like I was sitting up there for the longest time. I kept debating on wether or not to get down, but no one called out and told me I won the game yet. And I was NOT losing again.  
It wasn't long before I started getting bored. I hadn't even seen Raph come in the room, or maybe I wasn't looking hard enough.  
I had been staring at random stuff, playing I spy with myself…  
Suddenly the tree started shaking. I grabbed on and held it tightly. Were we having an earthquake?!  
"Guys!" I shouted from my hiding spot.  
And then the tree was still.  
"Gotcha," Raph's voice whispered from above me.  
I didn't have time to look up before Raph jumped down on me, and we both fell off the tree branch.  
On the way down, one of the branches slashed my arm and we crashed on the ground.  
"OW!" I cried in pain. "OW OW OW OW OW OW OW!"  
"What?!" Raph started freaking out when I was crying. "Shut up, it didn't hurt!"  
Leo and Donnie came rushing in at the sound of my screaming.  
"What happened?!" Leo demanded.  
"Mikey, what's wrong?!" Donnie asked.  
I didn't actually know what was wrong…I just knew my arm was hurting really bad and I didn't want to let it go.  
Raph had been a big jerk about the whole situation.  
"Alright, Mikey," Leo spoke softly. "Let me see."  
I hesitantly held out my arm, and we both gasped.  
My arm was all red. It was the first time in my life I'd ever seen this weird red liquid coming out of my body like this.  
I screamed.  
I had no idea what that stuff was or where it was coming from. I just knew my arm was hurting because of it.  
I mentally linked that red liquid to my pain and I did not want it on me.  
I wiped it all off of me. When it was gone, more appeared. It wouldn't stop appearing.  
"WHAT IS THIS?!" I demanded of Leo, freaking out.  
"It's blood!" he frantically tried to calm me down. "Just blood, it's okay!"  
"WHY WON'T IT COME OFF?!" I continued to yell, scared beyond compare.  
"Mikey," Leo said my name very gently, putting his hands on my shoulders. "Calm down, lil bro."  
My eyes met with his, and he had such a…a calmness. He was so relaxed where as I had been drowning in my fear. But the way he was, the way his eyes told me it was okay, I calmed down.  
"Don't look at your arm, okay?" he told me. "Look at me, keep your eyes on me."  
I nodded as he helped me stand up and led me outside.  
"Let's put something on it and wait for Sensei to come home," he offered. "He'll know what to do."  
"What about Donnie?" I asked him, looking everywhere but my arm.  
"I don't think he knows what to do about this," he laughed awkwardly. "We're nine years old, he's no doctor yet…but he is on his way."  
We exited the dojo and Raph and Donnie looked up at us from the sofa.  
They both gasped, and I pushed myself against Leo for comfort. He was the only one who wasn't freaking me out.  
Leo led me to our bathroom where he closed the door to keep the other two out. He grabbed some towels and handed them to me, telling my to hold it on my arm. I did, and it stung.  
Leo stayed with me until Sensei got home. He let me tell him all about my favorite comic books even though he read them all himself. He kept me distracted from the pain and more so, the blood.  
Sensei walked into the bathroom and looked at my arm.  
"It seems you will need stitches, Michelangelo," he told me examining my arm.  
"Stitches?" I asked him.  
"I will explain, follow me," he said.  
Sensei brought all of us (Donnie and Raph too) into the extra room and told us what stitches were. I was totally scared to let Sensei sow up my arm, but Leo told me he'd be right there with me.  
Sensei gave me a new towel to bite down on as he started stitching me. Donnie was watching as Sensei explained the process.  
It hurt so bad, but Leo held my hand and let me squeeze his as hard as I could. He winced a few times but never complained. He knew I needed it. and it helped me so much knowing that I had a big brother who was looking out for me so much.  
Thankfully, it didn't last too long and I only had to get five done. Donnie even did the last one just as good as Master Splinter did.  
"You both did very well," he complimented us. "Donatello, you are truly a fast learner and Michelangelo, I am proud of you for taking it so well."  
He left the room to wash his hands off, Donnie right behind him. Raph awkwardly shuffled in behind then, looking down at the floor.  
"Mikey, Raph has something to tell you," Leo said, walking towards the door. "I'll let you guys talk."  
"Sorry, Mikey," he said not looking at me. "I didn't mean to hurt you…"  
I thought about the whole situation. I was so mad at Raph, but being mad wasn't going to to anything. And Raph never said sorry, so I definitely didn't want to pass that up.  
"It's okay," I told him.  
"I won't do it again," he said finally looking up at me. "I promise."  
I smiled at him, and he smiled at me.  
"Your stitches are seriously cool," he told me, looking down at my arm.  
So I got an apology and a compliment? It's funny how when Raph got in trouble, he was a lot nicer.  
"Yeah, thanks," I said, looking down at my arm.  
I was just happy there wasn't anymore blood._

"Well," Donnie said, finishing off Leo's stitches and bringing me back to reality. "That's all I can do…"  
"Is he gonna be okay now?" Raph asked, looking nervously down at Leo who was still asleep.  
I would have worried that he was dead had that heart monitor not been beeping steadily…  
"I—I don't know," Donnie stuttered.  
_What now_…  
Donnie had gotten Leo's wound closed, and it wasn't bleeding anymore.  
"What do you mean you don't know?" Raph demanded.  
Donnie looked down, defeated. I waited for his response, I dreaded it.  
"Leo's lost way too much blood," Donnie said. "And his body can't regenerate the red blood cells he needs to function fast enough."  
"What about a blood transfusion?" Raph asked.  
Donnie thought about it for a minute.  
"Leo has O negative blood," he said after a minute.  
"What does that mean?" I asked.  
I thought all blood was the same. Apparently I was wrong.  
"It means Leo's body can only accept O negative blood."  
"Well give him some of it!" I told him, not really understanding what the problem was.  
"Mikey, O negative is the rarest blood type…" he told me. "It'd be a miracle if any of us have it."  
"Try mine," Raph immediately held out his arm.  
Donnie looked at Raph and nodded, jumping right back into action. He grabbed three syringes and a bunch of other stuff.  
I watched as he rubbed down Raph's arm and his own with some of the sanitary wipes he had given me earlier.  
Then he looked over at me, waiting.  
…No.  
"No way dude…" I told him, hugging my arms to myself.  
"Mikey, Leo's life is at stake…" he told me carefully. "I understand you're hemophobic—"  
"Hemo—what?" I asked him. "What did you just call me?"  
"Hemophobic," he repeated, turning his attention back to Raph's arm. "Hemophobia is the immense fear of blood. I've seen it, Mikey, I get it. But are you going to let that stop us from saving Leo?"  
Donnie inserted the needle into Raph's arm. He winced a little, but watched intently as Donnie took a little bit of blood from him. Donnie then did the exact same thing to himself.  
I watched as he put the blood in small containers and placed them inside of his spinny thingy he used to make the cure for the wasp poison.  
He turned in on and turned back to me.  
"Mikey," Raph called my name. "Do it for Leo."  
I looked down to Leo's pale face, then up to the heart monitor which was again decreasing in beeps. I doubted Donnie could bring him back again with the shock pads if it came to that…  
I took a deep breath, and help out my arm. Donnie quickly rubbed my arm down with a sanitary wipe, and stuck a new syringe into me.  
It barely hurt, but I kept my eyes shut. I did not want to see him actually take my blood.  
I opened my eyes again when I hear Donnie's machine snap closed.  
We had to wait a full two minutes before we knew what any of our blood types are. In that time, all of us watched the heart monitor screen.  
_Please keep fighting, Leo…  
_I thought about all the times Leo had saved me throughout my life. The times that I had been remembering all throughout the night. He was my big brother, my best friend. I couldn't lose that in the way I was going to.  
The machine buzzed a couple of times, letting us know it was done.  
Donnie read the screen intently, and his eyes grew wide.  
"Well?" Raph demanded.  
"…One of us has O negative," Donnie spoke lowly. "That's…statistically that's…"  
"Which one?!" Raph and I both exploded at the same time.  
Donnie's eyes rose to meet mine.  
_Oh no…  
_"Mikey…" Donnie started to say.  
"May—maybe it was wrong!" I tried to deny it. "Check it again!"  
"We don't have time to check it again," he told me. "It's now or never…"  
"I—I—I can't…" I stuttered.  
I couldn't even begin to imagine Donnie taking my blood and me seeing it happen. I couldn't handle that.  
"Michelangelo," Raph said in hard voice, looking down at Leo.  
I turned to face him, about to run for my life. His eyes rose to meet mine.  
"He would do it for you."  
Raph was right.  
In fact, Leo had already done it for me.

_***  
White walls. Pink lasers.  
And one escape pod.  
Those were the only things that existed right now.  
My brothers and I were running from the biggest and grossest Kraang monster I'd ever seen.  
I don't know how it happened, but somehow, I tripped. I lost my footing and I tripped. My brothers were all too far ahead of me.  
I was done for.  
I stared at the laser, waiting for it…  
"GET AWAY FROM MY BROTHER!" Leo screamed.  
I saw him fly above the laser and slice it off with his sword. It fell and I barely dodged it.  
"Hurry Mikey!" Leo yelled down to me.  
My head shot up to him and I threw him one end of my nunchaku.  
He pulled me up and I only had a few seconds to look at him. His eyes were all over me, inspecting me. His eyes were burning with the question, "are you okay?"  
Before I could speak, that stupid Kraang monster got back up…  
"There's nowhere for you to run, mutants…" the Kraang said.  
And we were running again.  
But I noticed Leo was staying behind me…  
I jumped into the escape pod with my brothers, and crashed into Raph. He pushed me off and I shot back up.  
What was Leo doing…?  
He was standing with his back to us, facing down that giant monster.  
All throughout my life, I had known Leo to be fearless. Sometimes Raph called him that, and he hated it. He told us he was not fearless, and there was one thing he was afraid of more than anything. But he never told us what it was.  
In that moment, I realized what it was.  
Leo was afraid of losing us.  
"All of you will die here," the Kraang informed us.  
Leo tensed. I looked down at his hands to see he still had my Kusarigama chain.  
Don't do it…  
He did it. Leo extended my chain and jumped at the Kraang. We all watched, frozen, as Leo wrapped it up and landed behind it, holding it back.  
"LEO!" Raph shouted.  
"No!" he screamed back. "Get out of here, now!"  
"WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!" Raph continued, looking like he was ready to jump out of the escape pod.  
"Dude!" I called out to him. "You can't do this!"  
He couldn't. No. He couldn't stay behind while we all got to live. Leo, above all of us, didn't deserve that.  
"GO!" he ignored us.  
We all watched as the Kraang fought against Leo's hold, and Leo slid forward towards us a little. Leo was losing his grip on it.  
"I CAN'T HOLD IT BACK ANY LONGER!"  
My eyes shot to Leo's and his connected with mine.  
My big brother, my oldest brother.  
My best friend…  
There was this look in his eyes, something that said "it's okay". He wanted us to get away, even if it meant he would die.  
"Go, Mikey," I heard his voice in my head.  
Raph was in the process of jumping out of the pod when Donnie pulled him back.  
"We gotta go, now!" he told Raph.  
I pulled down the glass shield, activating the ship.  
My Kusarigama chain snapped, and Leo fell back. The monsters was lunging for us, but it missed.  
And I couldn't look at Leo anymore.  
I looked over to see Donnie struggling to hold Raph back. I wrapped my arms around him, but he pushed me off and slammed into the glass.  
"Leonardo…" he said.  
Tears filled my eyes.  
_***

Donnie sat me down in a chair right next to Leo.  
"Don't look," Donnie ordered me as he put an IV in me.  
I kept my eyes locked on Leo's face and kept telling myself it was for him. It was for everything he had ever done for me.  
I felt the pinch of the needle go into my arm. I traced the wire that was in my arm. It was attached to a bag that was hanging above me, and it had another wire that was going directly into Leo.  
Suddenly, the wire turned red and I snapped my eyes shut.  
I felt Raph's hand pat down on my head, and I stiffened. That was something only Leo did…  
"Mikey, don't do that," Donnie told me. "Stay relaxed, and don't look."  
As more and more time passed, I felt weirder and weirder.  
I was getting weaker.  
After 17 straight minutes of blood leaving my body and going into Leo, Donnie removed the needle from my arm.  
"I have enough," Donnie announced to us. I opened my eyes but I kept them focused on what was in front of me and not what was next to me.  
I still had no desire to see it.  
"I'm proud of you, little brother," Raph told me.  
"Thanks man," I said sitting up.  
I didn't know how blood donation worked, but I sat up to immediately fall back down.  
"Whoa…" I murmured, dizzy.  
"Gotta lay still for a few minutes, Mikey," Donnie told me, covering my arm with a bandaid.  
I obeyed him. I sat perfectly still and waited until it was okay for me to move.  
But without trying to, my eyes looked at Leo's face.  
And I was proud of what I did.  
I faced my hemo—whatever Donnie called it, and I had saved Leo. I faced my biggest fear and won. Now he was gonna be okay. The whole thing was behind me.  
"Alright Mikey, you need to go into the kitchen and eat something salty to help your own body replace your—" Donnie stropped himself before he said the word. "Energy."  
"Is pizza salty?" I asked trying to lighten the still too dark mood.  
"That's fine," Donnie said.  
"And Leo's gonna be okay now, right?" I asked him, hopeful.  
"He—yeah, he will."  
He didn't sound as relieved as I felt. I guessed it was because he was busy making sure Leo got all of the blood back.  
"Sweet!" I said, slowly getting off the chair and heading to the kitchen.  
My legs were still a little shaky while I walked.  
"I'll help you, Mikey," Raph said.  
I stopped and waited.  
"Actually, Raph," Donnie stopped him. "I need to talk to you for a minute."  
Raph looked back at him and nodded.  
"I'll be there in a minute, Mikey," he said.  
I nodded happily and made my way to the kitchen.  
"I'm not really sure how to say this…" was the last thing I heard Donnie say before I closed the door.

* * *

I hope you guys like the story so far! As I said on my profile, this is a story I originally posted on my TMNT tumblr blog. Well, someone who read it actually sent me some fan art they drew for this chapter! Click **here** to see some amazing fan art done for this story.

Anyways, this story is actually already done. I'm kind of just on a one-a-day chapter posting update schedule. If you want to read the rest early, visit my .com blog and visit the My Fan Fiction tab!


	5. Chapter 5

Donnie had told Mikey that the worst was behind us.  
I didn't believe that for a damn second.  
And if they thought the mission was over, they were dead wrong.  
We still had work to do, and it looked like I was going to be the only one to do it.  
It seemed like I was the only one who could do it.  
Donnie was still working, even though "the worst was behind us". Mikey was emotionally and psychically drained from this entire living hell of a night. And Leo was…  
I didn't need any of their help.  
I was going to beat down every single Foot ninja I saw.  
I was going to find Karai and make her sorry for what she did.  
I was going to find Master Splinter and force him to come home so he could see my dying brother, his dying son.  
And so he could know it was all his fault.

_*****Post-Booyakashowdown, Pre-Follow the**__**Leader.**_

Raphael's P.O.V.:****

I couldn't help but feel proud of Mikey for what he had done. I know what it's like to face your biggest fear head on and have to stand your ground for those you love. I had faced Donnie's giant cockroach monster a few months back.  
Mine was easily more intense, but that wasn't the point. Everyone is afraid of something, and it isn't easy to confront that.  
Mikey had done just that tonight, and I was so proud of him.  
But our real problem was that Donnie couldn't force himself to face his own fear.  
The fear of hurting Mikey.  
Donnie didn't have the heart to tell Mikey the actual truth.  
"I'm not really sure how to say this…" Donnie told me as Mikey closed the door.  
"It's not gonna work, it is?" I asked him.  
I already knew.  
Donnie looked down to Leo, then to me.  
"I really don't know," he said sadly.  
I sighed.  
Despite everything we did, everything we had gone through to get Leo back here in time, we still failed him. He was still gonna die.  
Leo was still going to fucking die.  
I tried to keep my emotions, especially my temper, from surging over me. Leo definitely wouldn't want me to lose my temper, but especially right now. Not when I had to be strong for Donnie and Mikey.  
_Mikey_…  
He was going to be devastated when he found out. More than that; my little brother was going to fall apart. He was going to spiral into this insane depression and never come out of it.  
He was going to live the rest of his life knowing that he could have done more, he should have done more…but he didn't. He sat there and watched as his brother took a fucking sword to the chest, and then failed to fucking get him home before he bled out.  
No…that wasn't Mikey._  
That was me.  
_I clenched my fists at my side staring down at Leo.  
"Why can't it work?" I demanded in a whisper.  
I couldn't show Donnie how I was falling apart inside, but I definitely had to know why everything that we did that night - my attempted sacrifice, the frantic CPR, Mikey's blood transfusion - was all for nothing.  
"Mikey had the right type of blood," Donnie started. "That in itself is a statistic miracle. And that was probably way more than we could have asked for.  
"I took blood from Mikey and put it directly into Leo, which he needed badly. He got the right type…just not the right amount…"  
"What?" I stopped him, shocked.  
He'd been drawing blood from Mikey for almost twenty minutes, how could that not have been enough?  
"I put Mikey at a serious risk…" he said sadly. "I took more than a safe amount of blood from him. Did you see how he almost passed out instantly after I took the needle out? I kept drawing because I thought maybe if I kept going, Mikey would be okay and Leo would be fine too. But Mikey was fading fast, and I knew I couldn't let him keep going. That's why I stopped it when I did. I would have kept going it if was possible, but I wasn't willing to put Mikey's health in danger.  
"So, the real problem isn't how much we gave Leo, but rather just how much Leo actually lost. And I know for a fact Mikey didn't give him that much back…"  
I stood there using every single ounce of my will power not to scream. Not to fall to my knees and yell every fucking thought in my head.  
How could this happen? How could this fucking happen?  
"So—so it's basically hopeless," I asked him, my voice betraying my real emotions.  
"This isn't exactly impossible or a lost cause," Donnie was hesitant in his answer.  
I looked over to him to see his face, no trace of hope there.  
"Leo _could_ pull through…he always does, doesn't he?" he laughed sadly. "But…I don't think we can beat statistics twice in one night."  
"It's a fucking lost cause," I spit through my teeth.  
"No, Raph, its—"  
I cut him off. I was fucking done.  
"Donnie, what you basically just told me is that we did all that we could, and it's got a 95% chance of not being good enough. I'm not fucking Mikey, you can be real with me. You don't have to fucking lie to me, I can handle the fucking truth.  
"If Leo's gonna die…" I had to stop for a second.  
Just saying it hurt worse than Karai's sword stabbing me in the chest nine times.  
"If Leo's gonna die, then you can fucking say so. I can handle it, I…"  
I was losing it. I didn't even know what to say anymore, and my eyes were watering. Donnie only made it worse.  
"Yeah, because repeatedly saying you can handle it and tearing up is going to convince me," he snapped at me, tears in his eyes as well. "Don't act like you're the only one who's hurt, Raph, and don't you dare act like the whole damn thing is your fault. It's not only you."  
I bit my tongue. I didn't want to argue with my brother…not while this was happening.  
Donnie took my hesitation to his advantage.  
"Think about how Mikey's going to feel when we tell him…" he said much lower. "I don't think either of us are prepared to break that to him. Not after what he did…and I don't even want to imagine how Splinter will…"  
_Splinter._  
The rest of Donnie speech faded into the background of my head.  
_Fucking Master Splinter…_  
I had completely forgotten about him.  
The whole mess wasn't our fault…it was his. And I was going to make sure that he fucking knew it.  
I didn't know how much time Leo had left. I just knew that Master Splinter had to se him before he died, so he could know what he did. What he caused.  
Donnie was still talking when I stormed out of his lab. I think I could still hear him even after I closed the door. At that moment, I realized he wasn't talking to me so much as he was to himself.  
Leo hadn't even died yet and we were all going crazy.  
Mikey was sitting down on the couch scarfing down pizza, totally unaware of Leo's condition.  
"Hey," he cheerfully called out to me when he heard me close the door to Donnie's lab. "Did Donnie tell you when Leo was supposed to wake up?"  
I stopped dead in my stride towards the entrance. I had a choice to make. Was I capable of telling Mikey the truth? Was I really going to break his fucking heart like that?  
He, more than any of us, deserved to know the truth. After what he had done to try to save Leo. and one of us was going to have to tell him eventually.  
I sucked in a breath.  
"No," was all I could say.  
I was tough; I was the toughest on the team, the toughest in my whole family. There were even times when I thought I was tougher than anyone in the world.  
But I wasn't tough enough to shatter Mikey.  
"He doesn't know," I lied. "He said it could be a while with all the medicine in him and what not."  
"Bummer," Mikey's face fell. "I hope it doesn't take too long…"  
"Well," I didn't really know what else to say. "Yeah."  
I continued walking towards the exit.  
"Hey, Raph?" Mikey stopped me again, a new strange tone in his voice.  
"Sup, buddy?" I stopped again, turning to face him.  
I was so close to the exit. I couldn't take lying to my baby brother anymore…not about this.  
I couldn't even begin to imagine what he was gonna feel like when Leo…  
"When do you think Sensei is gonna come home…?" he asked me innocently.  
_Fuck_.  
"Why don't you go sit in there with Donnie and Leo?" I completely avoided his question.  
Since Leo was going to die, I wanted Mikey to at least get to spend however much time Leo had with him. Even if Leo was in a coma until he finally gave up, I still wanted Mikey to have that time with him. Time I wasn't tough enough to have…  
I halfway thought my question wasn't going to deter him. Luckily for me, Mikey was easy to distract.  
"Nah," he laughed, taking the bait I put out. "Leo's still pretty beat up. I might have been able to give him the…you know the word. Doesn't mean I wanna see it, though."  
I nodded, taking one step towards the exit.  
"…Raph?" Mikey asked again.  
_Please…no more questions…I can't keep doing this_.  
I was seriously about to lose it. I needed to get out of the fucking lair. I couldn't fucking stay there and wait for Leo to die…  
"Yes?" I didn't look back at him this time.  
"Where are you going?" he asked me.  
"Out," was all I said.  
I didn't give him any more time for questions. I walked over to the Shellraiser and hopped in.  
I tried not to look. I tried not to look at the fucking blood stains on the table…but I saw them. They were bright red, like my fucking mask. I had never hated the color red so much before.  
I saw them and I clenched my fists. Silent tears poured down my face as I ripped open the bottom hatch of the floor.  
I slipped in the Stealth Bike and sped off, out of the fucking subway and out of my fucking head.  
I drove through those dark tunnels of the subway, eventually getting out to the streets.  
Where was I even going? I was so focused on getting out of the lair that I hadn't really picked a destination…  
I thought about all the things I could do. I could go looking (or hunting…) for Karai and make her sorry for what she did. I don't care how much she tried to hide it, what she did to Leo fucked her up. She might not have ever had the same feelings that he had felt for her at one point, but she had some form of a relationship with Leo. Stabbing him wasn't something she wanted to do unless she was forced to. And I wanted to put her through hell for it. I wanted to tell her every single detail of just how much Leo was suffering because of her. She wouldn't be able to face herself.  
I could try to find the Shredder and take him out, not that I would be able to. I knew where his fucking "hideout" was, right in the middle of the city. finding him would be the easy part. Taking him down…not so much. Even when the four of us fought him together, we still got beat. Without Leo, we were just fucking toys to him; he could stall and waste all of our time and not give a damn about the life he took. I wouldn't have a chance alone, but I think at that point, with all of the feelings I had, I would have much rather died.  
I could do something constructive and hunt down robbers or thugs like the Purple Dragons, and take my rage out on them. They didn't deserve it, they had nothing to do with anything…but they were allies with shredder. That was their crime that they had to pay for.  
Or I could do what Leo would probably have done. Gone back to the dock and made sure that whatever shipment of stuff Shredder was after wasn't available anymore; the original mission.  
That was what I needed to do. I needed to make Leo proud so that when he left, if he wasn't gone already, at least he could rest in peace knowing that he left a mark on me, and he taught me how to do the right thing.  
I think that's all he ever wanted for me anyway, to learn how to the best person I could be…  
_To be like him…  
_I was careful not to take the same route I had driven to get home. Going down that path would have been way too painful.  
I weaved in and out of streets throughout the city, making my way back to the dock where this whole night had gotten so fucked up in the first place.  
It was so difficult to keep the tears from my eyes as I did everything I could to block the memories from replaying in my head.  
I remembered passing each street, not saying a word and listening to Donnie frantically yelling at Mikey to help him. I was just doing my best to get Leo to the place he needed to be until the fucking Shredder stopped us.  
So many people had played a hand in Leo's death, myself included. I couldn't help but feel like if I had done better, been better…it wouldn't have happened.  
I wouldn't have had to lose my older brother.  
I parked my bike in the exact same spot as we had parked the Shellraiser: off to the side of the warehouse where Leo and Splinter had been on top hours before.  
For trying to block out the memories, I was doing a pretty shitty job…  
I put one foot on the ground and took a deep breath. I was trying to clear my head. I was there for a reason, not to be depressed about what had happened. I kept telling myself that Leo needed me to be strong. I was probably going to have to lead the team from then on, anyway.  
That was when I noticed the trail of blood leading around to the front of the dock, where out battle had been.  
Where Leo had gotten fatally wounded.  
_Fuck_.  
Tears. Fucking more tears. I couldn't fucking stop them from coming out. I wasn't actually heavily sobbing or anything like that. Silent tears were just pouring out of my eyes, and I couldn't do anything about them.  
So I pushed myself forward, following that trail of blood, Leo's blood, to what I realized was the last place I wanted to be.  
I couldn't handle it, so why was I going? What did I have to prove to anyone? That I could be just as fearless as Leo? That I had in me to do what he could do? I woudn't ever have to make the sacrifices that Leo did, because he paid the price for me. I could try to tell myself I could have if it ever became down to it…but I knew I wouldn't ever be able to. So why was I torturing myself by trying?  
Despite everything, all the crazy thoughts I had raging in my head, I made it to the front of the dock, looking out over the ocean. Another place where Leo had almost died for me.  
No more thoughts, I told myself. I had to focus on why I was fucking there. I had to be stronger.  
When I turned, I saw the last fucking person I wanted to see.  
Master Splinter was there with his back to me, kneeling exactly where Leo had gotten hurt.  
_Holy fuck_…  
In that moment, I understood what Leo felt like when he was charging at Karai. That need to do whatever it took to keep what you loved safe, that need to _kill_.  
The bloodlust, it was completely overwhelming.  
There was no accurate way to ever describe it. It was like a fire that was burning every part of my fucking soul. It was so painful and it had to be put out. The only thing that could douse those flames was_blood_.  
When I had seen that hysteria in Leo's eyes earlier, as he was charging at Karai to save us, I had no idea how someone could hate that much. I didn't think it was possible. The amount of need in Leo's eyes…it was like someone was strangling him and he needed oxygen. His desire to kill was something on a higher level of existence that I thought I could never understand. Yet here I was, starring at the back of the man who was the main reason my best friend, my brother, was going to die…  
And he was totally oblivious to my being there.  
"Splinter," I called out to him.  
I didn't bother with the 'Master Splinter' bullshit. We had been raised to know that 'Master' is the respectful way to greet your Sensei. Now it was too formal. And formality was the last fucking thing he deserved.  
He didn't fully turn to face me, the fucking coward. I could only see half of his face.  
But something happened in that moment as I realized he was kneeling over a pool of Leo's blood.  
There were no words. There were no tears or expressions.  
There was only his eyes..and I could not fucking explain what I saw in them.  
It was like I could feel it, like his emotions became my own. It was like we were connected. And it hurt, so fucking badly. Every emotion I ever felt throughout the entire night leading up to that moment paled in comparison to this. The sadness and the agony I felt in those moments were more intense than anything I'd ever felt before in my life, or anything I would ever feel.  
This pain was a million times stronger than the bloodlust.  
I was suffocating, there was no air for me. There was only pain and loss and so much fucking torment. It was like there wasn't enough room in the entire universe to hold all of that hurt.  
The pain of a father knowing he had hurt his child.  
And it was like his eyes were begging me to understand that he knew. A small part of me began to think maybe Splinter really did understand what the fuck he had done…and that he was clearly fucking suffering for it.  
Or maybe this was me finally and truly realizing the reality of the night, and everything that had fucking happened.  
I shook my head, and I focused more on his face than his eyes. I wouldn't let emotions fucking stop me anymore.  
My older brother was going to die because of this man, _our_ _father_. The man who had raised us all to do the right thing all of our lives. Who trained us and looked after us and told us that he _loved us_.  
What a fucking liar.  
Everything that my brothers and I had ever been taught was a complete fucking lie.  
This was the man I trusted more than anyone in the fucking world, and he had shattered that **_trust_**; it was gone and wouldn't ever fucking come back.  
I had never had a worse thought in my entire fucking life than I had looking at Splinter in that moment: _how fucking fitting that you would be mutated into a God damn rat_…  
"Is Leonardo—" he started to ask quietly, snapping me out of my thoughts.  
"Don't—" I immediately stopped him. "Don't fucking say my brother's name. You're not worthy."  
Hearing _'Leonardo'_, it just…it broke through to the sadness and confusion I had just felt was gone. The anger was back, full in force.  
"Raphael," he tried again, even more broken.  
"NO," I growled at him. "Don't fucking say my name either, or Donnie's, or Mikey's. Don't you fucking say any of our names, and don't you dare fucking call us your 'sons'."  
He finally stood up and turned to face me, and I looked up to him from across the dock. Just seeing him, it brought back all the flashbacks of the night I'd been fighting.

***_  
That fucking arrow, hitting Leo's sword and forcing it to the ground.  
That fucking look of shock on Leo's face, and the wild fear that was in his eyes._  
_That sick fucking relief on Splinter's face, like he knew he had done the right thing.  
Those horrible fucking moments were playing before me again.  
I could see Leo's eyes shoot open as Karai's sword impaled him. The way his eyes went wide and his pupils shrunk in that moment…and his blood splattering on the ground below him as he crashed._  
_I could see me, Donnie and Mikey rushing him to the Shellraiser. All the streets I was flying down, trying desperately to get fucking home.  
Shredder's black car stopping us._  
_Me looking directly past Shredder to the Shellraiser, knowing what I had to do.  
Telling Mikey and Donnie to leave me knowing it was our last option._  
_Another fucking arrow slamming into the Shredder and him chasing after Splinter.  
Leo's heart stopping, and me frantically giving him CPR to revive him.  
Donnie's shock pads electrocuting Leo, kickstarting his heart and bringing him back for the moment.  
Mikey's fear as he gave up way too much blood to try to save Leo.  
All of it. The entire night danced in my head in a blur of fast motion and made me want to fucking die myself.  
Or at least take the life of someone who was responsible for it._  
_***_

I felt my hands reach for my Sais, and I gripped them tightly in my hands. The bloodlust was back…just not quite as strong as it was before.  
"Raphael," he said my fucking name again.  
I raised my Sais and crouched into a defensive position. I wanted to show him that if he said my name again, I would fucking go after him…  
"I would like to ask you to think about something for me," he said. "Though I doubt you will take my words to heart in your clouded vision of anger and betrayal."  
His words, though in a sad tone, were fucking arrogant. I don't think he wanted to sound that way, but that's what I was fucking getting.  
He was fucking asking for me to attack him. He knew he was fucking asking me for it…  
"I know you are angry with me, Raphael…"  
Angry? I had passed angry twenty exits back. I was livid.  
And the fact that he had the fucking nerve to say my name again…  
That was it. I was done.  
I charged at him, wanting to hurt him so fucking badly.  
"I TOLD YOU NOT TO SAY MY FUCKING NAME AGAIN!" I screamed at him.  
Splinter did not move as I closed in on him, but I don't really know why I thought I could have brought him down. The second I lunged for him, he dodged me and pinned me down, holding my arms down and locking me by a pressure point.  
He knew every single point that could complete immobilize a person. He held me down while placing a single finger on my neck. Splinter only weighed about 185 pounds, but it felt like I had three tons gluing me to the ground.  
I fucking hated when he did that.  
It didn't phase me at all that I had just attacked my father. I was waiting for him to let me go so that I could strike again.  
"Please, listen to me my son," he began speaking again.  
"I am not your fucking son," I spit at him from the ground.  
I couldn't psychically hurt him, but I could still fight with my words.  
"You must…you must understand why I did what I did," he tried again.  
I wasn't going to let him get in my head.  
"There's nothing to understand," I told him, vainly attempting to get out of his hold. "You were going to let us get killed."  
"That is not why I did it," he said sadly.  
"Do you realize what happened to Leo because of your fucking actions?" I demanded.  
"Do you realize what would have happened had I let Leonardo go through with his intended ones?"  
I failed, because his words did get in my head. Not in the way that I was open to his words, but because I wanted to know how the fuck he could even think he was able to justify it.  
He took my hesitation to his advantage.  
"It is like I am always telling you, Raphael," he started. "Anger is self-destructive. That saying has more meanings that one. It does not simply revolve around a negative attitude. Rage and wrath are two of the most devastating forces in the world.  
"I shot the arrow not to put Leonardo in danger, but to save him."  
"SAVE HIM?!" I fucking scoffed. "Are you fucking kidding me?! He was trying to save us, and he could have if you would have fucking let him."  
"Had I let him kill M—" he tripped on his words, which was so unlike him. "Karai, what do you think would have happened to him?"  
"He wouldn't have had to take a sword to the chest?" I sarcastically answered.  
He paused, and I could feel him tense at my words. I hoped they fucking hurt.  
"When you were all younger, and I introduced you to your weapons, I saw each of you face a new light," he started a fucking story that I had no choice but to listen to. "There was a drastic change in the night I actually showed you your weapons, and let you see them. When I had asked you four to think about what weapons you wanted, you simply thought of which ones were the most appealing to you, not what you could actually do with them.  
"The next night when you came back, I was fairly pleased with all of your choices, aside from Leonardo's. You had all chosen weapons that were, for the most part, incapable of lethal force. Donatello's Bo stuff, which has a long range of attack to keep enemies away. Michelangelo's Nunchakus, which match his speed and can stun enemies more than leave lasting marks. Your Sais, which hold the main purpose of disarming enemies…you had always liked hand to hand combat more, anyway…  
"I digress. My point was that Leonardo had done what I had feared most. The katanas had taken his interest…the weapons with deathly potential. I thought maybe I could change his mind, that I had to change his mind. I could not let one of my sons truly understand what these weapons could do, the power his choice wielded. Especially not at such a young age.  
"That night after I let you all hold your real weapons for the first time, I merely gave Leonardo wooden swords. The real ones were too heavy for him, and I used that as a prelude to lead him what was to come.  
"When I had sent you all to bed for the night, I held Leonardo back to speak to him. I asked him why he chose the katanas, and he said they looked as though they were meant for him. I did not expect that answer from a child, and I knew I had to instill not only a fear of them, or more so a respect for life.  
"I let him hold both of his real swords while the blades were protected by their sheaths, but seeing him struggle, I let him hold just one. He managed to balance with it. It was enough to make my point.  
"I explained to him how, same as all of your weapons, these swords were to be used for self defense, never for taking lives. I explored how the weight of the katanas could easily impact his strikes. How if he swung too hard, he could truly end someone.  
"I watched as fear began to build in his eyes. Leonardo had told me that he understood, and that he was confident in himself. He said he was not scared of the weapons, though I could see that he was. My words were effecting him, but nowhere near the intensity they needed to. Much like all children his age, he learned through experience. He needed an example, a demonstration to understand.  
"As all of you were asleep, I guided Leonardo through the tunnels of the sewers, finding the entrance where the harbor and the sewers met. I knew there were plenty of fish in the water; the perfect target for the example.  
"I took Leonardo's sword from him and unsheathed it. I gave it back to him, showing him the proper way to hold it. Much like his wooden swords, he took to it with ease. He gripped the sword tightly by the handle, still struggling with its weight, but not letting it deter his spirit. If there was all but one thing I could never commend Leonardo enough of, it is his fierce will and determination…  
"Using my staff and a few crumbs I had, I lured a fish out and capture it, placing it on the ground right before Leonardo. He watched nervously as it flopped, suffocating without air. I knew this was the lesson he had to learn if he was going to wield the katanas. I knew how uncomfortable it was going to make him, but I knew it was in his better interest as well.  
"I traced an indivisible line on the fish's body, telling Leo I wanted him to strike there. He looked up to me, terror in his eyes. I fought my fatherly instincts with everything as I realized I was subjecting my six year old son to training that was far more intense than he was mentally capable of handling. But he had to learn, he could not skip this lesson.  
"When he saw that I was waiting, he looked down at the fish once more. I told him he had once choice: use the weapon he had selected, or chose a new one. I fully expected him to back down, but Leonardo has always had an unshakable sense of self, and a stronger will than I have seen in men twice my own age…  
"Again, I digress. He hesitated, but he brought the sword down on the creature. I remember I was impressed by his sharp aim, as he had cut exactly where I told him to cut, but more to the point that he had made the cut. He immediately lifted his katana up to see the damage that he had caused. The fish was now frantically shaking as it protested the pain in its last few moments of life. I remember Leonardo's eyes as he watched that fish die at his own hands. He had tears in his eyes when the fish finally stopped moving. My lesson had gotten to him, and he was now capable of understanding the power he held.  
"I cleaned off the blade and sheathed the sword as Leonardo stayed locked in place. He was transfixed by that dead fish, not able to move or look away from it. It was then that I realized I might have gone too far, or that I had given you four the choice of your weapons far too early. I complimented him on his accuracy, and he merely whispered a thank you. Seeing this, I swept the fish back into the water and handed Leonardo his sword. He watched the fish float out of sight, and still remained still for the moments afterwards.  
"I noticed that Leonardo did not speak the entire way home. I tried talking to him, but he would give me low, one word responses. This is the point in your lives that you may have noticed Leonardo's seriousness come through. He played less games with you three and focused more on his training. I believe that the one and only time he had taken a life, it conditioned him. It shaped him.  
"He learned that day that everything I was teaching you had an underlying message: respect life, do not kill needlessly. All life, even small life such as a fish, has meaning, and power. I had placed a scar on Leonardo's soul, hoping that he could somehow pass it on to you three without ever having to teach you the lesson literally…"  
He stopped his story to breathe. I could tell that he wasn't proud of a lot of things in his life, but forcing his six year old son to kill something to learn a lesson was one of his bigger ones.  
Splinter was right; it was at the point when we were around six that Leo got crazy serious about everything we were doing. That was when he really started trying to be like Splinter. Hell, this one time when Mikey had forced Leo to leave the lair and gotten in trouble, Splinter would make Mikey do extra training as a form of a punishment. Leo wasn't in trouble, but he fucking stayed and did all of that extra practice with him…  
Everything that Leo was, it was shaped by that one fucking event. That one time he ended a life…  
I could understand Splinter's message…but…  
"Bloodlust does not suit any of you, especially Leonardo…" Splinter finally spoke again. "I do not believe you realize why I have trained the four of you to never use lethal force…The taking of a life, even in means of defense, is devastating, Raphael. It can truly crush a ninja's spirit.  
"Had I let Leonardo kill—Karai," he tripped on his words again. "What do you think would have happened? You all would have been fine, Leonardo included, but only for the moment. While the three of you would live your lives going forward, Leonardo would live in the dark shadow of his actions. I know my son well enough to know this, Raphael. It would have _haunted_ him, _destroyed_ him."  
_No_.  
I'd heard enough.  
"You're trying to tell me that you fucking saved him," I fought back. "I don't buy into that. Not one fucking bit."  
"Than prove it," Splinter said.  
Suddenly all of that pressure was gone, and I sucked in a deep breath of relief. Not that I couldn't breathe before, it was just nice to be free.  
I stood up shakily to see Splinter standing before me, both of his arms out to the side.  
"You believe I deserve death," he said in a sad tone. "Than you may be the one to give it to me."  
My eyes went wide as I listened to his words. He was literally giving me the chance to kill him for what he had let happen to Leo…  
"I will not defend, you have my full consent to strike me down, my son."  
Moments ago I wanted this so fucking bad. Now I was unsure.  
But I couldn't let him know that. I couldn't let this fucking monster be right.  
I gripped my Sais tightly and approached him, wanting to kill him so badly.  
_Wanting to want to kill him so badly_.  
I stopped right before him, and pulled my right arm back. My intent was to use my Sai like a knife, to stab him so he would know what Leo had felt.  
_Just fucking countdown_, I thought to myself.  
_Three_.  
I braced for it. I told myself all of the relief I would feel when I killed him.  
_Two_.  
He deserved this after what he did to Leo. Killing him would be for Leo.  
_One_.  
My arm snapped forward and my eyes shut tightly. I waited to feel the impact of my Sia piercing him.  
But it never happened.  
I couldn't do it…  
In my mind I was picturing a six year old Leo, training in the dojo with his wooden swords. Leo having been forced to become who he was because of what he had been forced to do.  
Leo didn't have the choice. I did.  
And Leo wouldn't have wanted me to make the choice he was forced to make.  
I carefully opened my eyes to see that my arm had stopped mere inches away from his chest…and I shivered knowing what I had almost done.  
"You could not even do it and you are already distraught from the thought of what you could have done…" Splinter spoke softly. "Take what you are feeling, and multiply it to a high degree. You still can not understand the pain one would feel at taking a life. The pain a young Leonardo felt many years ago, and the pain he would have felt had I allowed him to go through with his earlier intent."  
"He would have stopped like I did," I pointed out, fucking crying. "He couldn't have done it if I couldn't have done it."  
I fell to my knees overwhelmed. I was fucking crying. And Splinter was seeing it happen. He knew he fucking won.  
"There is a difference in your situations, Raphael," he explained. "You wanted revenge, Leonardo's intention were much more pure. He wanted to protect you three. I have no doubt that you saw in the eyes of your brother what I had seen. A monster beyond all control. Leonardo was possessed by it, leaving himself no room for better judgement. Once that monster had fulfilled its purpose, it would have left Leonardo to ponder what he had done. And that would have killed him."  
He was fucking right. Everything that I felt was fucking killing me. Had I actually killed Splinter, I couldn't imagine that pain if this was how bad coming close to it felt. And Leo was not a killer. He could not have been able to handle this. I even saw it flash in his eyes for a brief moment earlier. When his katana hit the ground, and he looked over to Karai mortified by what he had almost done.  
But he didn't have enough time to think about it, because he was so focused on saving us…  
"I acted to slay that demon, and to save my son from it," Splinter finally concluded.  
"But you didn't fucking save him," I whispered. "You fucking killed him…"  
"Raphael, did you not listen to my—"  
"SPLINTER," I shouted, looking up at him.  
He looked down at me, taken aback by my outburst.  
"YOU DON'T FUCKING UNDERSTAND," I continued my rampage. "YOU FUCKING KILLED HIM! THAT WOUND THAT HE GOT FROM KARAI, IT KILLED HIM!"  
Splinter's face fell so fucking far down. He staggered a step backwards, like I had just giving him the most shocking news in the world. Wasn't it fucking obvious that it was a serious wound considering he had been leaning over a puddle of Leo's blood a few minutes prior?  
"No, I did—I—" Splinter tried to speak. "I was sure that Donatello could take care of any wounds he received…but…Leonardo is actually…actually—"  
"He's fucking dying," I kept screaming. "Right now."  
Splinter had proven his point, but it didn't change the fact that because of him, Leo was dead.  
He was completely silent, staring at me with absolute shock and horror. This time, I took his hesitation as my advantage.  
"You can try to tell me all you want that you fucking saved him, but you didn't. Because of you, he got hurt trying to save us. Fatally wounded, Splinter. We did everything we could to get him home and to save him, but it wasn't enough. It was too fucking much. And now he's lying at home, getting closer and closer to death because you had to save his fucking soul or whatever, but I'll tell you one thing. I'd rather have a brother with a fucking dead soul than an actually dead brother."  
Now Splinter was crying. Now he finally fucking understood. And God did I hope it hurt as badly as it looked like it did.  
Splinter collapsed onto his knees before me. He was looking back towards the blood stains on the ground, and then he turned back to me.  
He opened his mouth like he was trying to speak, but no words came out. Only tears.  
In that moment, I realized I was wasting my time. What I had said was true: Leo was dying, and I knew I needed to be there with him while he was still fucking here.  
I rose before Splinter, leaving him on the ground to rot in the fucking hell he was in.  
"Don't fucking come home," I told him.  
He looked up to me. He was beneath me, below me, and my words had done their job.  
"We don't want you there."  
I turned and walked away. I left my father on the ground there to live in his torment. I didn't care where he went from there, as long as he didn't come home.  
The ride home was one of the most confusing times in my life. The only other time I had ever been so disoriented was the first time I had ever gone up to the surface.  
The entire way back, I'd been thinking of ways to say goodbye. How was I supposed to tell Leo everything I should have told him? That he was a better leader than I could have ever been. That he was everything I aspired to become one day. That he was my best friend in the whole fucking world.  
That I loved him for being the best big brother I could ever ask for…  
My mind was creating all these scenarios of conversations we could have had. I pictured Leo telling me to lead the team, and to keep Donnie and Mikey safe because he couldn't do it anymore. To take my ninja training more seriously and to learn all the things he would never get to learn.  
To somehow find it in me to forgive Splinter for everything…  
By the time I'd gotten back to the lair, I couldn't tell how much time had passed. I was worried I hadn't made it back in time.  
I didn't bother parking the Stealth Bike properly. I jumped out and walked into the living room, spotting Mikey sitting with his hands covering his face. It looked like he was crying.  
And very faintly, I could hear the sound of a flatlining heart monitor coming from Donnie's lab.  
_Fuck.  
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck…  
No…not yet. I didn't get to fucking say goodbye…  
_I started breathing really fast. There suddenly wasn't enough air in the room for me.  
Mikey's head shot up to look at me, and he jumped up quickly. He grabbed me by my shoulders.  
"Whoa, dude, calm down!" he urged. "Are you okay?! Are you hurt?!"  
Mikey hadn't been crying…his eyes weren't puffy or glazed or anything.  
"N—no," I answered his question, still not completely calm.  
"Dude, you gotta chill," he told me.  
"Where is Donnie?" I asked him, nervous as fuck to even look towards his lab.  
"He's with Leo dude," Mikey said, worry creeping all over his face. "What is so wrong with you?!"  
I guessed Mikey still didn't know…or that he couldn't hear the fucking heart monitor.  
I looked at his eyes, searching for a sign that he knew. I didn't find anything but concern for me.  
"Okay…" he finally said, letting my shoulders go and backing up. "Well, I'm gonna go to bed. It's like four in the morning and I kinda dozed off sitting down there waiting for you…by the way, Leo was looking for you and…"  
"You mean Donnie?" I instantly snapped at him, thinking in his exhausted state that he got the names mixed up. "Donnie was looking for me?"  
"Oh, yeah…" Mikey said.  
I was right. Fuck.  
Mikey yawned, further proving his tiredness. "Yeah, Donnie was looking for you too. But Leo asked where you were first so, you should go see him."  
I looked at Mikey, so fucking confused. Was he that fucking tired? Was he sleep talking? Had he fucking dreamed that Leo was awake and asking for me?  
The heart monitor noise was all the proof I needed, and it gave me all the desire to avoid that room.  
Leo was dead in there, and I didn't need to see his body, whether Donnie had covered it or not.  
"…Maybe you need sleep more than me," Mikey laughed and then yawned again. "You look like you're gonna faint, bro. Just go say hi to Leo and get some sleep, dude."  
"Mikey, stop," I couldn't take it anymore. "Leo's dead! He's fucking gone! You couldn't have talked to him!"  
He stared at me, wide-eyed. He turned his head towards Donnie's lab, then back to me.  
"Bro," he said very calmly. "Go in there, please."  
I didn't fucking want to, but Mikey seemed convinced.  
I began to think that maybe I was dreaming. There was no way Leo was alive…  
Maybe walking in that room and seeing him would wake me up. It was worth a try, because I definitely didn't want to live in a world thinking Leo was alive when I knew he wasn't…  
I left Mikey standing there in the middle of the living room and awkwardly shuffled to Donnie's lab.  
I peaked my head through the door to see Donnie with his head on his desk totally passed out.  
Very slowly, I entered the room, keeping my eyes locked on the floor. I didn't want to look up at the table until I was there.  
All I could heard was that fucking flatlining noise, telling me what I already knew. The slower I walked, the more it was fucking driving me insane. I looked up to it and yanked it away from the wall, shutting the damn thing up.  
And I had arrived at the table.  
The first thing I saw was wrapping around Leo's wound. There was a small bit of blood stains on it but no where near as much as before. I inspected Leo's plastron and notice he'd been all cleaned up. There was no blood all over him or anything, which was a huge relief.  
My eyes hesitantly made my way up to his face.  
I was met with two incredibly bloodshot, and extremely curious blue eyes…


	6. Chapter 6

The world was blurry, but slowly getting clearer.  
Still, I struggled to make sense of everything around me.  
I knew where I was: Do nnie's lab, but I had no clue how I got there.  
One top of that I had no clue why I felt 1,000 different things.  
Physically, I was a wreck. I was freezing. I was sore. I was tired. I was hungry. I was in pain.  
Mentally, I was beyond insanity. I was upset. I was angry. I was betrayed. I was confused. I was hurt.  
Something was wrong, something had happened. Something horrible.  
I knew I had to stop and think, try to piece together everything I knew.  
It started with a pair of questions…  
What happened to me to make me feel all of those things?  
And why was Raph standing in front of me, protecting me from Sensei?

**_***Post-Booyakashowdown, Pre-Follow the_**_**Leader.**_

**_This Fanfiction is rated M for strong language and violence. Read at your own risk / digression. _**

_It was dark, and it was cold._  
_And I was so terrified.  
My brothers liked to believe that I was fearless, and though I hated when they called me that, a lot of the time, even I thought I was. But it was them who made me "fearless"; everything I did, I did for them. For their safety and their well being. I loved my family that much._  
_The only thing I had with me was one of my swords. I gripped it tightly, confused and afraid of this world._  
_This cold, empty world._  
_I didn't know where I was. Everything around me was black, and the only light I could see was a circle on the ground before me._  
_There was nothing else for me to do, so I walked towards that light._  
_Once I got there, there was still nothing. I was lost in this world. And God was it cold…_  
_"Hello…?" I called out, shivering_  
_"Leo!" I heard a voice respond._  
_I tensed. It sounded like one of my brother's voices…Mikey's voice. Were they here too?_  
_"…Are you guys there?" I tried again._  
_"Hey, Leo!" Raph's voice answered me this time._  
_"Raph? Mikey, Donnie? Where are you guys?!"_  
_The voices started coming from everywhere at once. My brothers were calling my name from every direction, and they wouldn't stop. Everything was spinning. What was happening?_  
_I looked all around, but all I saw was darkness. It was so strange. It sounded like their voices were so close to me, mere meters away._  
_But all I could see was black._  
_Without warning, they all stopped. Everything was still and quiet._  
_Everything was freezing._  
_"Leo!" Donnie's voice cried out._  
_That time, it was one voice. A single voice. And the voice came from behind me. _  
_But it was incredibly urgent unlike before._  
_I spun around to see the three of my brothers kneeling all on the ground in their own circle of light, yards away from me. They were all looking up at some figure before them. Raph was in the front, his arms extending in front of Donnie and Mikey. He was protecting them from someone._  
_"Guys!" I shouted._  
_They didn't look at me. They were so focused on the person before them._  
_"H-hey," I realized they were in danger. "Get away from them!"_  
_The figure didn't move. It didn't acknowledge me in any way._  
_"Leo, help us dude!" Mikey cried, looking to me._  
_I watched in horror as the figure drew a sword and raised it above them. Raph and Donnie glared at the figure while Mikey's eyes grew wide._  
_My grip on my sword tightened. I raised my blade, ready to take any actions necessary. _  
_"Get away from my brothers," I hissed again._  
_Again, no movement._  
_This figure, this person was pushing me to a point where I had no desire to go. A point where I'd never had a desire to go._  
_But this feeling, it was familiar…_  
_"Get. The. Hell. Away. From. Them," I gave the person one more chance to listen._  
_He didn't._  
_His fingers rewrapped around the hilt of his sword. He was ready to swing._  
_Like hell I was going to let that happen._  
_I wasn't at a good angle at all. There was no way I could get around him and block his sword in time. _  
_I was going to have to actually hurt him._  
_I was going to have to kill him…  
The line between life and death, I had learned at a young age, was very thin. As thin as the blade of my katana…_  
_I pushed the thoughts from my head as I stepped out of my circle of light and charged towards the back of this figure._  
_I lowered my sword and kept my eyes on my target so I wouldn't miss._  
_This was not about me, this was not about self defense or anything I'd ever learned about it._  
_This was for my brothers. _  
_This was to save them._  
_They needed me to rise up and be strong. They needed me to save then regardless of whatever I had to do. They needed me to be strong._  
_They needed me to kill this man…_  
_It was like he heard me coming, because he turned to face me as I got closer and closer to him._  
_I stopped dead on my feet._  
_No…_  
_There was no sword anymore. No, that was gone, replaced by a loaded bow. The arrow head was pointed towards me._  
_Master Splinter, my Sensei…my father was aiming his weapon directly at me._  
_No…  
"Sensei…?" I could barely force myself to speak._  
_He didn't respond. He just kept his eyes locked on me, his arrow pulled back._  
_I was so confused._  
_There was no one behind me, I knew he was aiming directly at me. But…why?_  
_"Sensei," I tried again._  
_I lowered my sword to show him I had no intention of using it in anyway. He didn't mirror my actions and kept his bow raised._  
_"Leonardo," he finally said my name. "What have you done?"_  
_What? I had done something?_  
_I knew something was wrong, because this world was not my home. I had no idea how I'd gotten there or how to leave, but I didn't think I'd done anything wrong since I'd arrived…_  
_I looked down to my brothers for answers._  
_What I saw forced me to my knees._  
_Donnie, Raph and Mikey were all lying there in a pool of blood, covered in cuts on their bodies._  
_They were all dead._  
_My katana suddenly weighed ten pounds heavier. I looked down to it._  
_And I screamed._  
_It was covered in blood._  
_"Wha—wha—wh—" I tried to speak through my growing hysteria as I threw my sword away._  
_"What have you done?" Master Splinter repeated, never lowering his bow._  
_"NO!" I screamed even louder. "I—I DIDN'T—I WOULDN'T EVER!"_  
_I was in hell. That was the only logical explanation. I had died and I was in hell._  
_I couldn't have killed my brothers. I didn't do anything. I was ready to kill Master Splinter before I'd known it was him, but I didn't touch him. I stopped myself._  
_Why was my sword covered in my brother's blood?_  
_"WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON, SENSEI?!" I screamed up to him._  
_I was never one for bad language, and I wouldn't have ever dreamed of using any in my Sensei's presence. No, that was more of Raph's department. But I couldn't stop myself from outbursting. _  
_My brothers were dead and I was apparently at fault.  
It was all so wrong._  
_I was shaking and screaming and crying on my knees._  
_And God, I was so cold…_  
_"I thought I had taught you this, Leonardo," Master Splinter said. "I thought you understood the power you wielded. But you learned nothing, and your brothers paid for it."_  
_"Sensei, Sensei," I cried. "I didn't, I wouldn't ever…I—"_  
_I was cut off when an arrow pierced me in the shoulder._  
_"You learned nothing," he repeated._  
_Pain._  
_There was so much pain. There was too much pain._  
_Agonizing pain radiated from my shoulder throughout my entire chest. It hurt so bad. I felt like someone was pouring acid on my skin._  
_I was suffering. I couldn't breathe. _  
_I was suffocating in the dark, freezing world. _  
_And through that pain, somehow I found a strange sense of peace._  
_If my brothers had to die, I wasn't going to try to live without them. I loved them too much to ever even think about existing without any of them._  
_If I had truly killed them, I deserved this pain. I deserved an infinite times more of this pain. More than just one arrow._  
_But it didn't feel like just one arrow was in me. No, no it felt worse. Much worse._  
_So much worse, I couldn't find the words to describe it._  
_Somehow, it was growing impossible colder._  
_I pulled that arrow out, I didn't like that cold feeling that was taking over me. But it didn't help. It didn't make the pain any less significant._  
_I put my hands on the ground to keep myself up._  
_"Se—Sensei—" I tried to speak, but I was choking._  
_When I opened my mouth again, drops of blood stained the ground below me._  
_My eyes looked all over for him, desperate for help._  
_He was gone. And so were my brothers._  
_I was alone again._  
_"Somebody, help me…" I cried._  
_I collapsed to the ground, unable to support myself any longer and I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore._  
_So much pain. So much cold. So much darkness._  
_It was all overwhelming. _  
_And I was shaking._  
_The entire dark world was shaking.  
_***

"Mmmm…" I groaned as I forced my eyes open.  
Despite the pain that I was feeling, I was so relieved to see that I wasn't there anymore.  
I could see the roof of the Shellraiser. I could tell I was lying on my back. I could feel the vibrations of the tires on the pavement as someone frantically drove in my place.  
The darkness was gone…but that pain and the cold were still there.  
And they were getting stronger.  
I didn't want to go back to that place. I was too scared to live in a world where my brothers were dead.  
It was impossible to live in a world where my brothers were dead because of me.  
The shaking of the Shellraiser forced my head to turn. I realized I was too weak and too hurt to move on my own.  
What had happened to me? Why was I like this?  
Whatever I had seen in that dark world wasn't real, because Donnie and Mikey were next to me. Donnie was fumbling with something and Mikey was watching him with terror in his eyes.  
"Raph, I need you to keep the Shellraiser steady!" Donnie commanded.  
"Mikey, hold him down please!"  
I could feel myself moving with the shaking of the Shellraiser. I couldn't move or keep myself still, and Mikey looked like he didn't want to get anywhere near me.  
Why was he afraid of me?  
I tried to speak, but the cold and the pain kept my lips shut.  
Why was I in so much pain? That world that I had seen, that frigid hell clearly wasn't real. My brothers were all in front of me, they weren't hurt.  
"I'm trying, Donnie," Mikey finally responded to Donnie. "But there's so much blood here…I don't want to touch it!"  
Blood? There was blood?  
That was when I finally saw it. Donnie's hands and wrist wraps were covered in it.  
Was that…mine?  
Another wave of pain crashed into as the Shellraiser hit a turn. God, everything hurt so bad…  
My brothers kept arguing.  
"Well get the hell over it! Raph can't do it because he's driving!"  
Well, that explained why we were all bouncing so much…  
"Let me drive then Raph can come do this!" Mikey countered.  
"Mikey, damn it, hold Leo down!"  
Mikey was truly terrified of me. I'd never seen him so scared of anything in his life. His eyes were on everything but me, he wouldn't look over to me at all. Did I really look that bad?  
If I looked at bad as I felt, than Mikey had every reason to be afraid of me.  
_I was afraid for me_.  
I had never seen Donnie with so much urgency before in my life. A small part of me couldn't help but be proud of him. If I ever couldn't lead the team, I know I was leaving it in good hands.  
Donnie's outburst broke through to him, and his eyes finally met with mine.  
Mikey…my youngest brother, my baby brother. I was close to Raph, and I was close to Donnie…but Mikey and I had a completely different level than them. I was closer to Mikey in different ways than I was closer with the others. I was protective of all of my brothers, but more so Mikey. All throughout my life, I had stuck up for my baby brother.  
And now here he was, feeling so scared and alone and I couldn't protect him from that. I was too weak, too hurt, and too cold to do anything. All I could do was stare at Mikey and beg him to take those things away from me.  
I didn't know what he could do for me, but I begged him with every cell in my body to make that pain stop: both mine and his.  
Mikey starred back at me, looking more conflicted than he had ever been before. More than anyone had ever been before.  
It reminded me of the night he first night he'd ever seen blood…when he cut his arm after Raph had pushed him out of the tree in the dojo…  
"MICHELANGELO," Donnie stunned us both by shouting. "He's going to _die_ if you don't help me!"  
His scream broke me out of my train of thought, and brought me back to that pain.  
That was the problem. I was dying. Whatever had hurt me, wether it was Sensei's arrow that didn't exist or something…it was killing me. I was dying.  
And it was starting to get difficult to keep my eyes open.  
I didn't want to close them again. I didn't want to go back to that place…but I couldn't keep them open. It took too much energy that I just didn't have.  
I saw darkness behind my closed eyes, but I was still in this world; my world. The real world.  
I felt pressure on my chest, hands holding me still. I didn't have to open my eyes to know it was Mikey. The additional pressure aggravated my wound, and it stung. I couldn't do anything to protest it. I just focused on breathing.  
I knew I was in a fight for my life. I knew I had to do everything I could to pull through for my family.  
_My family…_  
My brothers were all with me in this world. I knew they were. But I hadn't seen Master Splinter.  
Sensei…Just the thought of him did something to me. I felt angry. Betrayed even. Why? It couldn't have been my dream about him…I knew it hadn't actually happened.  
Something had happened, something that the pain and the cold were preventing me from remembering…  
"Leo, can you hear me?" Donnie asked.  
I was so relieved I was still there and not back in the dark world…  
"Where…where is Sensei?" I somehow managed to ask.  
I waited, but none of them responded to me. I panicked, fearing I had left again. Or maybe that I was dead.  
No, I couldn't have been dead. I wouldn't have been able to feel that pain, and that cold.  
Faintly, I could feel a finger drawing a circle close to where the source of my pain was.  
"…I'm—I'm gonna make the pain go away, Leo," Donnie told me softly. "Mikey, keep him as still as you can, and move your hands to here."  
If I could have told Donnie thank you, I would have. If anyone could fix me, it was him. If anyone could make that pain stop, it was him.  
I had so much faith in Donnie, in all of my brothers. They would save me, because I sure as hell couldn't save myself.  
I felt Mikey's hands reposition on my plastron. For keeping me still, he sure was shaking a lot…But I had to give him credit.  
"What is that, Donnie?" Mikey asked.  
I didn't care what it was, I wanted it to make me better…  
"A syringe, Mikey," he replied.  
One shot. That's all I had to endure. A single shot in my arm. It wasn't going to be anything compared to what I was feeling now…  
"No, I mean what's that stuff inside of it?" Mikey asked a new question.  
I heard Donnie take a deep breath.  
"It's morphine and anesthesia," he whispered.  
Mikey didn't respond, but I knew he was confused. Just like Mikey… But I couldn't help but be proud of him.  
He didn't even want to touch me in the fir—  
Pain. Nowhere near as intense as the original source, but there was pain again.  
It wasn't in my arm like I'd been anticipating.  
I felt something stab me in the chest, and the shock forced my eyes open. I sucked in a huge breath of air as I gritted my teeth.  
I thought this was supposed to make me feel better! It didn't do anything but hurt worse and…  
And…  
_Woah_…  
I could feel that morphine spreading through my chest. Every second, the pain decreased drastically.  
After seconds, my entire body was numb.  
And I was so relaxed.  
More than that, I was exhausted.  
For a few moments, I wasn't scared of that dark world. I wasn't scared of the cold. The pain was gone and I was just so tired.  
I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore.  
And I was gone…

_***  
I was back in the dark. No, I was somewhere else…  
Somewhere I'd never been before. It was still dark, just like before. But there was something different about this darkness.  
And although the pain went away, the cold was still there.  
Donnie's medicine didn't make that go away.  
Donnie…  
I looked at all the surroundings around me. I looked for my brothers.  
There was nothing. I didn't even have my swords this time…  
What was this? This empty world was so similar to the first time I'd been here, but there was something different.  
There was warmth…  
I could feel it. I could feel warmth coming from the left of me.  
I looked over and saw some kind of light. I didn't know what it was, but I knew it was warm and easy and peaceful.  
And God, I wanted it so bad.  
I had been freezing for what felt like forever. I just wanted to be warm again.  
I started walking towards that light, and the closer I got, the better I felt.  
It was like a someone was wrapping me in a blanket…a soft, warm blanket. Every step I took, I was getting warmer and warmer.  
But I also felt like I was losing all the feeling in my body.  
All the feeling, except for warmth…  
"Leo," a voice said my name gently.  
I immediately stopped and turned. There was nobody.  
I was still alone…  
I started my stride again towards that light, that warmth.  
"Hey, Leo!" another voice called to me.  
I froze again…this was what happened last time I was here. My head shot around to see nobody.  
I didn't keep walking that time. I stayed glued to the spot I was standing in, waiting, anticipating, fearing the worst.  
I was so certain I was going to see my brothers dead again. I waiting waiting for them to appear, for my sword to be covered in their blood and for Sensei to shoot me again…  
None of it ever happened, and that light, that warmth was appealing to me again.  
I turned back to face it, and was surprised to see it was much closer to me.  
I loved that light. It was so much more than just warmth: It was relief, it was a break.  
It wanted to take all the pressure I always felt off of my shoulders forever.  
It was a chance not to care anymore, and I never realized how much I wanted that.  
I raised my arm, reaching out to it.  
"Leo," Raph's hand fell on my shoulder.  
I spun around in shock, starring at him wide-eyed.  
Raph, Mikey and Donnie were standing right behind me, all looking at me. They were alive, they were okay. Raph was smiling at me, Donnie wasn't screaming, and Mikey didn't look afraid.  
They all looked happy.  
I let out the biggest sigh of relief.  
"Guys," I breathed, throwing my arms around them.  
"Alright, Leo!" Mikey cheered as all three of them hugged me.  
I could have stayed in that moment forever, all of my brothers and I were okay. And we were together, all safe.  
"Guys, come on," I said, letting them go.  
Having no desire to stay there forever, I wanted them to feel what I was feeling.  
I wanted them to stay with me, I was too afraid to let them leave.  
I began walking again towards that light, but none of them followed. They all remained perfectly still in their spots, and their expressions had changed.  
Mikey was looking at me sadly. Raph was shaking his head. And Donnie was confused.  
"Leo, what are you doing?" Donnie asked me.  
"We need to go this way," I told them.  
They all shook their heads at me. I looked at them, confused.  
"Leo, don't…" Mikey said, the sadness and the fear I had seen in him earlier returning.  
"Mikey, no," I walked back to him, intending to comfort him.  
But I noticed something.  
The closer I got to my brothers, the farther away I was from that light, the colder I got. The more uneasy I felt.  
I didn't like it. I stopped dead in my stride to Mikey and took a step backwards.  
Leaving that light, that warmth…I couldn't do it.  
Mikey's face only fell even more.  
"Leo, come back," Raph told me. "Come back."  
I hesitated, not because I didn't want to go back to my brothers…I was just afraid.  
So much for "fearless"…  
They saw me stall. They took another step back.  
"Guys…stop," I told them.  
Half of me wanted to believe they were messing with me, because I knew they loved to.  
There were no traces of humor in any of their faces.  
"Leo, you can't leave," Donnie said.  
"Please don't go," Mikey begged.  
"Go where?" I asked them. "We can all go together!"  
"We can't go with you," Raph informed me.  
I starred at them. I didn't know what this was, what I was supposed to do.  
"Why?"  
"We can't go with you, Leo."  
"Stay with us," Mikey continued to whine. "Don't leave us, stay with us."  
The more they spoke, the more that light faded. The more that warmth faded.  
No.  
I staggered a step back, desperate.  
Mikey reached his hand out to me, but none of them moved towards me.  
"We can't go with you, Leo!" Raph shouted. "Don't you get that?!"  
"No, I don't!" I screamed back.  
I didn't want to go back if it meant pain and cold.  
"Leo, you can't come back if you go there," Donnie informed me. "And we can't follow you there."  
A different kind of ice shot through my body; a complete moment of shock.  
I understood what this was, what this light was.  
It was life and death.  
I had been walking towards_ death.  
"**_Trust_**_ me, Leo," Raph said. "You don't belong there."  
"You belong here, with us!" Mikey yelled.  
"We need you to fight, Leo," Donnie told me. "We need you to fight to stay with us. We need you."  
I nodded, it wasn't even a question anymore.  
I had wasted so much time here, fighting with my brothers about staying here. I hadn't realized they were asking me to stay alive for them._  
_My brothers needed me, and I would never turn away from them, not matter what it meant. Even if I had to face all that pain and all that cold._  
_If it was for them, it was worth it.  
I turned my back on the light and started walking confidently towards my brothers._  
_Their eyes lit up as they watched me._  
_I smiled to them, I was totally content with my choice. The closer I got, the most cold I became.  
I tried to ignore it; I tried to focus on the look of relief that was on Mikey, Raph and Donnie's faces.  
But that cold…it was more intense than before.  
It literally felt like I was frozen.  
I was shivering by the time I actually made it to them.  
"Guys…" I said to them wrapping my arms around myself. "Why am I so cold?"  
"Fight, Leo," Donnie simply responded. "Fight."  
"What?" I asked.  
I thought that was the fight, making the choice. I thought I was done.  
But that cold…I couldn't stand up anymore.  
I fell to my knees, shaking.  
And there was blood all over me, coming from the same place Master Splinter's arrow had hit me.  
Oh my God.  
"You can do, bro!" Mikey encouraged me. "You always come through for me! You're my hero, Leo."  
There was no pain, but I was losing myself in that cold. I was fading, and breathing was becoming so difficult for me.  
"Leonardo," Raph said my full name.  
I forced myself to look up to him from the ground, practically hyperventilating. For every ten breaths I took, it felt like I was only getting one. And it wasn't enough.  
He didn't say anything. He just looked at me, his green eyes were burning with sadness.  
The ground beneath me shattered like glass.  
I plunged into icy water water, and I was submerged in a sea of black.  
The light was gone. I was kicking and swimming in any and every direction looking for the surface. But there was no surface.  
I was sinking, I was drowning.  
I was not breathing.  
Black surrounded me as I frantically felt around for my brothers. They had been right in front of me before I fell. Did they fall in too? I couldn't tell. All I knew was that I was drowning. I was going to die here, alone.  
I should have gone to that light…  
At least my brothers weren't feeling that way. I hoped they never would.  
At that point I was done struggling. It was pointless, and I didn't want to anymore. I was waiting to die, that was all I could do.  
It was a slow process, and thankfully it wasn't painful (no doubt thanks to Donnie). It was just extremely uncomfortable, and freezing.  
"Leonardo," I heard Raph's voice in my head.  
I opened my eyes, but he wasn't there.  
"Fuck, fuck, fuck," his voice rang again.  
'Raph, where are you?' I thought.  
I was starting to lose all the feeling in my body, death was slowly coming over me. But I wanted to see my brother one more time before I died…  
"Fuck, c'mon Leo!" Raph's voice was getting louder and louder.  
I knew he wasn't there, I knew it was just in my head. I was still underwater and still unable to breathe. But they way it sounded, I could have thought he was right next to me.  
"I need you to breathe, I need your heart to start pumping, ANYTHING!"  
He was asking me to fight. Just like my brothers had been before I fell.  
'I tried, Raph,' I thought, hoping he could hear me like I could hear him.  
I was starting to feel this weird pressure on my chest…It was like a pumping rhythm. Up, down, up, down, up, down…  
It reminded me of CPR, almost.  
"Leo, Leo, please…" Raph was begging me.  
I didn't know what else to do.  
Suddenly, Raph was before me, and I could see him.  
He was under the water too.  
No.  
I didn't want him to suffer this.  
However, he looked totally unfazed by the whole being underwater and lack of oxygen thing…  
I realized that I was starting to slip due to my lack of oxygen…Raph wasn't there, it was just my brain getting delusional as I lived my last few seconds of life.  
Raph put both his arms on my shoulders, and I looked at his face.  
"Fight," was all he said.  
"MOVE!" Donnie's voice exploded from behind him.  
I looked past him but there was no one there. It was only Raph and I.  
Without warning, one huge jolt rocked through my entire body. I didn't know what it was, but it forced my eyes to open wide.  
And I sucked in a breath.  
Air.  
God it felt good, but God it burned my throat.  
I was still under the water, because I still couldn't breathe on my own. I needed that, whatever it was, jolt to hit me again.  
My eyes searched for Raph and thankfully, he was still there with me.  
"Please!" I begged him in my head. "Help!"  
"COME ON!" Donnie's voice came from no where again.  
This time I was braced for it, I welcomed it.  
And it hit me again, harder than the first time.  
I flopped out of the water, and I could breathe. I sucked in so much air, I started choking on it. Coughing, my lungs protested the free flow of air they'd been denied of.  
I wasn't out of the dark, but I was definitely less cold.  
That was more than I could ask for.  
And very faintly, somewhere in the distance, I could hear this weird beeping noise. It had a rhythm to it, like a heartbeat…  
Raph was gone. Donnie and Mikey were no where to be seen.  
Maybe they'd appear again, maybe they wouldn't.  
But I was done trying to find a way out.  
I decided to do what Master Splinter had taught me to do in moments of confusion. I sat down and I meditated, focused on breathing and more so, staying alive.  
I used thoughts and memories of my brothers to keep me going. I told myself that just like everything I ever did, it was for them.  
Sitting there, thinking about Mikey and Donnie and Raph…it helped. So much.  
At one point, I could swear I even felt myself getting warmer. Not by much, but I definitely felt a change. Like something was coming back to me. Something I had lost.  
A slow, gradual change. And bit by bit, all the feeling I had lost in my body was coming back.  
I was coming back…  
***_

I didn't know when I actually was able to open my eyes. I just remember at once point, I did open them.  
The ceiling of Donnie's lab greeted my eyes. It was the most beautiful ceiling in the world.  
I realized there was something on my face. Instinctually, I reached tried to reach for it, but my arm's mobility was limited.  
My eyes looked up and saw an IV bag above me, full of blood, and the hose thing lead directly into my arm.  
Whatever happened to me, I was in bad shape.  
I tried to sit up, but pain shot across my shoulder. I instantly laid back down, trying to avoid it, but it was too late; soreness spead all across my chest.  
"Ahh…" I moaned outloud into the breathing mask.  
I heard a gasp from across the room. I turned my head to see Donnie starring at me. His expression was almost hilarious, it looked like he was starring at a ghost.  
I tried to smile at him, but I think the oxygen mask hide it.  
I used my other hand to attempt to remove it. It didn't hurt as bad, so I took it off.  
"L-Leo?" Donnie's speech was shaky as he cautiously approached me.  
"Hey Donnie," my voice sounded raspy and hoarse.  
I almost laughed at myself. I must had been really injured.  
"Oh my God, Leo…" Donnie looked like he was gonna cry.  
Donnie was reaching for the oxygen mask again but I shook my head.  
"I don't need it," I informed him, taking a deep breath.  
He looked doubtful but nodded.  
"Alright…" Donnie said. "Well, your vitals are a lot more stable…how do you feel?"  
I opened my mouth to speak, but the door shot open and Mikey burst in.  
"DID I HEAR LEO SAY SOM—LEO!" Mikey exploded.  
He rushed over to me and I braced for his impact.  
"Easy, Mikey!" Donnie's arm shot out to stop him.  
If trying to sit up hurt that bad, I couldn't imagine what having a 150 teenage turtle land on you would feel like.  
"LEO, LEO, LEO, LEO!" Mikey wouldn't stop chanting my name.  
I looked at both of them, and they were both glowing looking at me. They were so happy to see me, and I was so fucking happy to see them.  
The real them.  
The real, _safe_ them.  
But one of them was missing.  
"Where's Raph?" I tried to speak again, my voice still sounding strained.  
"He went out," Mikey replied.  
Donnie looked over at him with weird expression, but shook it off and looked back to me.  
"How do you feel?" Donnie asked me, examining me all over.  
"Pretty sore," I told him, the pain really starting to hit me. "What exactly happened?"  
They both shivered, obviously recalling the night's events better than I did.  
"You—-you don't remember?" Mikey asked me innocently.  
I thought about it for a second before answering them.  
"…No," I admitted.  
They both looked at me like they were afraid to recall the events of the night.  
"Uh," Mikey looked nervously at Donnie.  
"Are you guys okay?" I asked, starting to get concerned.  
"Hm," Donnie ignored my question.  
He rested his chin in his hand and he gained a thoughtful look on his face.  
"Leo, can you tell me everything you remember up until now?" he asked.  
I drew a deep breath. The whole night was literally a blur of coldness and pain.  
I thought way back, trying to pick a starting point. Well, I had cereal for breakfast…  
No, that was too far. I trained from noon to four… Took a shower… Polished my swords…  
Patrol. That was a good place to start.  
…_Karai_.  
Her name hit my like a brick to the face.  
And countless emotions surged in me. Anger, hatred and depression were the strongest ones though.  
That night all started with her. We were going to ambush her meeting thing or whatever, and Master Splinter decided to come…  
Slowly, all of the memories were coming back to me in pieces. I remembered how painfully obvious Master Splinter had made it that he wasn't please with my leading of the team…and how he held me back to tell me about his plan that he didn't want the others to know.  
The drive there…the _awkward_ drive there, where both Sensei and Raph had been telling me to do better.  
Sensei taking over, leaving me to feel useless, ineffective, and like I had to prove myself.  
…Completely failing to prove myself as Master Splinter and I almost fell to our deaths. The only reason we had made it was thanks to Mikey, Raph and Donnie ambushing, and giving up our element of surprise.  
The more I remembered, the worse I felt.  
Something happened: my chain of memories was a time bomb waiting to go off, and I wasn't sure I wanted to remember anymore…  
I continued on anyway.  
The moments I actually ran on the wall like I had dreamed of doing my entire life, followed by the pain of dislocating my shoulder, and having to force it back into place to help my brothers.  
Watching Karai over power them…and raising her sword to kill them…  
That was it. That was what I had seen in that dream…  
I remembered charging at her, completely abolishing every moral I had. I remembered being so ready to kill her, and not giving it a second thought.  
Did I kill her? Is that why I had so many crazy dreams and emotions flooding in me?  
No, I would have remembered that.  
I had remembered vividly every day of my life the one time I had actually taken a life. One would think that something as tiny as a fish in the sewers couldn't have such a devastating impact on an entire life.  
But I thought about that fish every day. I thought about that fish every time I laid down at night.  
I thought about that damn fish every time I drew my katanas.  
Something had stopped me from killing Karai.  
Someone had stopped me from killing her.  
I was charging at her when something forced the sword to fall out of my hand.  
…Master Splinter's arrow.  
I didn't know what expression I had on my face when I remembered that moment, but I know it freaked my brothers out.  
This weird beeping sound starting getting faster and faster, and I had no idea what it was.  
"Leo?" Donnie shot up over me.  
I couldn't force myself to look at him. I could only stare at the wall as the memory of Sensei disarming me so Karai could kill my brothers took over me.  
"Leo, your heart rate is rising rapidly," Donnie told me.  
The beeping was a heart monitor…and God was it annoying in those moments.  
I glared down at all the wires hooked up to me. I traced them back to their respective machines, and I found three wires attached to the heart monitor. I ripped them off with my good arm and threw them to the side. The machine flatlined, and I chose to ignore it. There was nothing I could do beyond that point, anyway.  
Donnie and Mikey remained perfectly still, watching me. They both looking like they wanted to pounce on top of me to keep me from freaking out.  
I wasn't going to, not psychically anyway. I had a war now of emotions now raging inside of my head.  
I continued on, rebuilding the night in my head.  
I remember starring at Master Splinter, searching for an explanation, but never getting one. Karai had seen me, but my presence wasn't going to stop her.  
I had no way to defend my brothers against her…Well, I had one way.  
My body.  
That was it. I dove in front of them to protect them, I took the hit.  
Karai had stabbed me in the shoulder…  
I wanted to facepalm myself. How could I even forget that that happened?  
Probably because the following hours were filled with pain, ice, and crazy nightmares…  
But none of that mattered to me. Not even Karai stabbing me.  
All I could think about was Master Splinter…  
"Guys," I finally turned to look at them. "Where is Master Splinter?"  
Neither of them answered. They stayed completely silent and looked at me.  
"Donatello, Michelangelo," I used their full names to show I was being serious. "Where is Sensei?"  
"We don't know, Leo…" Donnie said sheepishly.  
"He didn't come back with us…" Mikey added.  
My eyes found the clock that Donnie kept on his desk. It was three AM. I quickly did some adding in my head. The whole fight happened at 11…so it was three…  
"So you guys haven't seen him in four hours?" I asked.  
They shook their heads at me, and Mikey yawned softly.  
For a moment, I put aside my own needs.  
"You guys need to get some sleep," I told them.  
They started to argue with me, telling me they wanted to stay up with me and keep me company because they had been scared I was going to die.  
I told them I understood, but I was still too weak and didn't have the strength to argue. They couldn't combat that.  
"I'm so happy you're okay, bro," Mikey gave me a gentle hug before he exited the room.  
Donnie put his hand on my good shoulder and smiled sadly at me. He didn't leave, though. He went to his desk and went back to whatever he was working on.  
I think knowing that I was alive took a lot of pressure off of him. After a few minutes of working, I looked back over to see him passed out on his desk. I was thankful that he was asleep, all of them needed it after hauling me back here and fixing me. Keeping me alive in the dark.  
I didn't have a lot of time to go back to my thoughts about Splinter before I heard yelling coming from the living room.  
"Leo's dead!" Raph's voice shouted out. "He's fucking gone! You couldn't have talked to him!"  
Well, Raph was home…and wrong.  
I had so many questions for him. I waited for him to come in here, my brain burned with anticipation.  
He peaked his head through the door, and I watched him slowly enter. I waited for him to approach me, though. I didn't want to immediately interrogate him and wake up Donnie. Not that that was possible, he slept through the yelling Raph just did.  
God, my brothers must have been so tired at my expense…  
Raph kept his eyes averted from mine in anyway he could. By the time he finally got up to my face, there were tears in his eyes; his tired, bloodshot eyes.  
So many tears and utter disbelief.  
I looked back at him with 1,000 questions on the tip of my tongue. But I knew the had to wait.  
Raph's obviously emotional state had to come first.  
"I made it, Raph," I spoke when I knew he wasn't going to be the first one to.  
He didn't respond right away. He just looked at me with so much pain in his eyes, like he'd been through everything Donnie and Mikey had, and then some…  
Something else happened to him. Something else scared him.  
"God, Leo," he said, gritting his teeth and trying not to let his tears escape. "Don't ever…don't ever fucking do that to me again."  
"Oh, you know, just another regular day," I joked with him.  
He needed some comedic relief.  
He just shook his head, and silently cried.  
I smiled at him. I didn't get to see Raph's emotional side come out too often, but I loved when it did. I loved knowing that if I ever really did die someday, Raph wouldn't have any problems adapting to the role of the protecter of the team.  
He bent down and hugged me awkwardly, seeing as I couldn't sit up. He was careful and avoiding my shoulder, which I was thankful for.  
He sighed and released me after a few moments, and I knew a good time wasn't ever going to come for my questions.  
So I limited myself to two.  
"So…" I started. "What exactly happened?"  
"You mean you don't know?" he looked confused.  
"I know up until I got hit," I explained. "Everything until a few minutes ago is just black."  
Alright, poor choice of words on my part, but technically true.  
"I don't really know how to describe this night," he paused. "It was just a big, fucked up mess."  
I frowned at him again. I needed more of an than that.  
"What happened to you, Raph?" I tried again, being more specific. "Just tell me."  
He took a deep breath.  
"I don't know what to tell you, Leo. The whole night was just a fucking race to get you back here. We were half way home and the Shredder got in the way…"  
I bit back my tongue when he mentions that they faced the Shredder. I let them fight our toughest enemy on their own…  
My eyes quickly inspected Raph. I didn't see anything other than three or four bruises, no significant damage.  
I was so grateful for that.  
"We, uh, managed to get away from him," he continued. "And when we got you here, you weren't breathing." (_When I was under the water…_) "I swear, Leo, the only time I'd ever been that scared was when you stayed back on the fucking Technodrome… Donnie managed to get your heart started again, and we brought you in here.  
"Dude, I wish you coulda seen Mikey. Donnie figured out he's a hemophobic…"  
"That's the fear of blood, correct?" I paused him.  
"Yeah, know-it-all," he sarcastically answered me. "The fear of blood."  
I liked that. Sarcasm was one of Raph's truest character traits. The fact that he could use it meant he was already feeling better.  
But there was still something in his eyes…  
"Anyway," he continued without my prompting. "He got over it and was able to give you blood. You lost way too much, and Mikey was the only one of us you could give you any…" _(When I was getting warmer on my own…_) "I bet that's what pulled you through."  
I listened to his words and absorbed them. He was leaving out so many details, I knew he was. But I wasn't going to bring them up if they caused him any pain.  
"Where did _you _go?" I asked him my second question.  
He tensed.  
"…To look for someone," he answered me honestly.  
I wasn't expecting that.  
"You went to look for Master Splinter," I told him.  
I knew that's what he did. If Sensei wasn't in the lair already, I had no doubt that Raph would have went out to find him.  
He growled when I said the name. I looked at him, waiting for him to expand.  
"Yes," was all he said.  
"Raph, I need to know what happened when you found him," I said.  
It was obvious that he found him.  
There were two possible outcomes that could have come from Raph's search. And two different kinds of pain that came with each one.  
One, he wouldn't find Master Splinter, and he'd feel the pain of being a failure.  
The pain of letting all of us down.  
Two, he found Master Splinter and something happened between the two of them. A pain caused by conflict.  
That was what I was reading from him.  
"We just talked," he said looking away from me.  
I'm so sure…  
"Raphael," I forced him to look at me. "This is about me, I know it was. I know whatever happened was about me, so I have the right to know."  
"You had the right to a lot of things, Leo," he snapped at me. "That didn't stop Splinter from taking it away from you."  
Donnie's head shot up from his desk at Raph's outburst.  
He looked at us strangely.  
"Please leave us alone, Donnie," Raph said in a rough voice.  
"You should go to bed, bro," I said, softer.  
Donnie awkwardly nodded and shuffled out of the room.  
I looked back to Raph, waiting for him to explain.  
"You had the right to be a kid with us," he started to rant. "You had the right to go through life and know you never had to kill something."  
_The fish story…Oh my God.  
_"It—wasn't that big a deal, Raph," I tried to lie to him.  
"Please," Raph laughed bitterly. "Please cut the protection bullshit, Leo. I know what that did to you. You weren't the same after that point, I remember it. You became this because of it."  
He pointed down to my bandages.  
"You weren't ever given a choice to grow into anything else."  
"I like who I am," I argued.  
It was true; killing that fish changed me a lot. I learned that day that the value of life was something far beyond comprehension. And it was something I had to protect…especially the lives I loved.  
"How do you know?" he asked. "You weren't ever given the chance to be anything different."  
I bit my lip and thought about it.  
"I could have been a million different things, Raph, but I took something positive out of it. I made myself into someone you guys can be proud of, and hopefully look up to. I chose not to be bitter about it."  
"But how can you even respect Splinter after he did that to you?" he demanded. "You were only a child!"  
He was right, I was probably way too young to have had to have learned that. Sensei could have waited a few more years to teach me that lesson…  
But still, Master Splinter always had a reason for everything he did. I had learned that from being raised by him for 15 years.  
I didn't always get his lessons, his advice, or his actions right away…there were countless days on end when I would do nothing but consider his words and just try to understand.  
The only thing I did understand was that he always had a reason, and he wouldn't ever do something to intentionally hurt me or my brothers.  
He was our Sensei, but above that, he was our _father_, and he always would be.  
"You know what I learned that night aside from the whole life is priceless thing, Raph?" I asked him.  
He looked at me with hard eyes, waiting.  
"I learned that no matter what it means, Master Splinter is going to do whatever he thinks is right for us. I **_trust_** him, Raph, and you should too. He's our father.  
"Regardless of what happened then, tonight, and what happens tomorrow, I'll always **_trust_** him. There's a point to everything he does, and when he see's it fit, he'll explain it to us too."  
I meant it all, every word. I just wanted Raph to believe it all, too.  
He starred at me like he was weighing what I said to something in his head. No doubt his interactions with Master Splinter.  
I chose not to question him anymore. He looked like he was at war with himself, like he wanted to believe me, but he just couldn't.  
To make the moment more intense, I looked up to see Master Splinter was starring at us from the door.  
I gasped, despite my efforts to hold my reaction in.  
How long had he been standing there? …How much of what I said had he heard?  
Raph's eyes followed my gaze to the door, and he wheeled around to face Master Splinter.  
His back was to me, so I couldn't see his face, but I could practically feel raging emotions rolling off of his shell. His fists were clenched as he faced our Sensei.  
And there were silence.  
Painfully tense silence. The air in the room was so thick, you could probably cut it with one of my katanas.  
Sensei wasn't looking at Raph, though. His eyes were stuck on mine, and his hand was slightly extended to me.  
"Le—Leonardo?" he said with so much hurt in his voice. "May I speak with you?"  
It didn't sound like he was asking me for permission so much as he was asking Raph.  
"Yes, Sensei," I replied.  
Raph's wild eyes shot back to me. He looked like he had no desire to leave me alone with Master Splinter.  
I looked up at him, pleading.  
"It's okay, Raph," I told him. "**_Trust_**me, and think about what I said."  
He was so hesitant, but he nodded. I think telling him to **_Trust_** me was what helped the most.  
He left my side and marched towards the door, avoid Sensei as much as he could. When he walked passed him, Raph stopped, looked up at him with an expression I couldn't quite read, and halfway bowed.  
…That was a lot more than I expected.  
It was more than Sensei expected too. Sensei looked completely shocked as Raph exited the room, closing the door behind him.  
There were a couple of seconds of stillness. I watched Sensei, waiting for him to move.  
He remained still, looking both sad and thoughtful.  
He finally turned to face me, walking up to me.  
And very gently, he placed his head on my head.  
He kept his vision locked on my wound, examining it, trying to see through the bandages. I watched his eyes, counting all the emotions that danced in them.  
Sorrow drowned everything else in them.  
His whole being, his whole soul was filled with regret.  
I don't think I'd ever seen so much pain before in my life…  
It scared me, to know that so much hurt could even exist. What I had felt earlier in the night, it all paled in comparison to this.  
I realized that Master Splinter was torn apart by the thought of almost losing another child.  
"Leonardo," he whispered, tears spilling from his eyes.  
And he hugged me. He wrapped his arms around me and squeezed me tighter than he ever had. It aggravated my wound, but I didn't react. I just let him have his moment, a moment he clearly needed.  
"I am so sorry, Leonardo," he breathed, holding back hysteria.  
The pain in his voice, in his eyes, it made me tear up.  
"I know, father," I told him, wrapping my good arm around him. "I know."  
Master Splinter stiffened at my words, like he was shocked by them.  
He backed away from me and looked directly at my eyes, searching for something.  
He was searching for anger, betrayal, negativity. He wouldn't find it, I held nothing against him.  
Master Splinter was my father. He would do things throughout my life I would question. I could hate him all I wanted, but it wouldn't ever change anything.  
I loved my father, and if that meant taking a sword to the chest without ever knowing why, I'd do it again willingly.  
Sensei had taken my brothers and I in after we were…uh, born, if that's the right word. He could have left us there to die, worried only about himself and never looked back on four half human turtles he'd accidentally created. But he didn't.  
He took us in and raised us. Master Splinter did everything he could to keep us alive. In the winters, when the temperature would drop, he'd do everything in his power to keep us warm. He did everything he could to provide us with everything we needed, and fought to give us things that we wanted. Like comic books and toys to play with. He'd read us stories at night and fed us.  
He raised us as his children, having already lost a family in his previous life.  
He spent years training us to be ninjas so that one day when he was gone, we could survive on our own.  
Choosing to turn my back on everything he ever did for my brothers and I seemed completely sane in the moments of impact and initial shock… Now it just seemed impossible.  
"You must…please, allow me to explain," he said.  
His words stunned me. I didn't actually expect to get an explanation.  
I nodded, listening.  
"Do you remember that night I taught you to use your katana?" he asked.  
The night Raph and I had just discussed… Again, I nodded.  
"Do you remember the feelings you had experienced afterwards? The crushing realization that you had the power to take lives if you so chose? I have watched you grow into a remarkable young man, Leonardo. Your potential and your skill know no bounds. Ever since that night, I have seen you grow more and more in tune with yourself, and your morals.  
"Tonight was different. That man was gone, replaced by someone else. I look I had seen in your eyes, I had seen before I another man…Oroku Saki, the night he attacked my home and took my wife and daughter from me"  
My eyes went wide looking at him. Did my Sensei seriously just compare me to the Shredder?  
I remembered the bloodlust. The need to kill Karai did completely wipe out every other thought in my head…  
"You are not like the Shredder, my son," he told me when he saw my internal conflict. "You are not evil, your intentions are always good. Beyond that desire for blood was love for your brothers, but I could not let you go through with your actions for many reasons…  
"All of those feelings you felt as a child after having killed the fish, a creature so small and unimportant to the world… You could never fathom the amount of devastation you would feel if you took the life of an actual person.  
"It would have destroyed you, Leonardo. It would have haunted you for the rest of your days, and you would be forced to live with the choice you had made in a moment of anger. It is not something you could ever adjust to, the pain is always there…"  
Master Splinter was trailing off in though…in memory.  
"Why do you have such an understanding of these feelings, Sensei…?" I questioned.  
He looked down on me and shook his head.  
"I have experience," he said.  
I was completely shocked. I had never known Master Splinter to be a murderer. No, there was a reason. There was always a reason.  
"The night Saki attacked my home," he spoke slowly. "He did not come alone. He brought with him a team of ninjas to distract me while he dealt with my family.  
"When they first broke in, they had us cornered in my bedroom; my only form of defense was my katana. I told them I would not hesitate to kill them if they attacked my family. And I did not. I killed all of those men in defending my family.  
"I do not regret my actions, but they still haunt me every day. Know that I had taken lives and in failing to protect my loved ones…I do not have words for it. And I could not let that happen to you. Even if you would have saved your brothers, I do not doubt you would have destroyed yourself."  
His words devastated me. Not only did he understand what I had felt, the need to protect my family, but he also had understanding beyond that.  
I remembered the feeling of agony I felt in those moments when he'd disarmed me, thoughts of actually having killed Karai plaguing my head.  
The thoughts of the actions I was prepared to do were tough enough to face, and yet here was my Sensei, who knew first hand what it actually felt like.  
"I never intended for you to get hurt," he forced himself to continue. "And when you had, I had not realized the severity of your injures. I was focused on ensuring that the others would not escape and…"  
"Sensei," I interrupted him. "Stop. I understand, you don't have to explain anything to me."  
I could understand why Raph was upset about me getting hurt…but Sensei's words were true.  
I got hurt, but he saved me from myself.  
And in the end, everything worked out.  
"You did what you had to do, Sensei," I told him. "Everything and everyone is okay. I'm not mad, Raph will learn to let it go. It's just like you taught me; holding on to the past is counterproductive. I won't hold onto it if you don't."  
His eyes lightened as he absorbed my words, and he looked at me with pride.  
"You need to rest, my son," he told me. "Your injuries will heal faster."  
I nodded, realizing I was still exhausted.  
I had been sleeping for hours, and wasn't awake for more than 50 minutes, but I was still tired.  
"I am so proud of you, Leonardo," he told me as I closed my eyes.  
"Thank you, Sensei," I replied.  
I felt a blanket spread on top of me.  
"One day, I wish to be as strong as you are, my son."  
That was the last thing I heard before I fell asleep again.

End.

* * *

Thank to all of you guys who followed this story! It means a lot to me. =]  
I'll be working on a sequel called _Scars_ in January. Look for it then!


End file.
